Never allow yourself to become unteachable. Life is continually changing, and if you aren’t careful, it will eat you up and swallow you whole. If you close your mind to the possibilities of what you think is impossible, you will never grow beyond the walls that you have built around you. Listen to and process all of your senses and open your mind to the changes around you, it is the only way you will survive.
Trust yourself enough to find and trust a mentor. You cannot navigate this ocean of life on your own. Find someone who will guide you but not steer your ship. Put aside your ego and listen to the words of someone else not to follow them, but to walk alongside them. The wisdom you will find from a trusted mentor is much more relevant than the wisdom that you will see from a celebrity on TV.
Your life is not your job. So you have had a bad day at work, leave it there. You spend about a third of your day at work, but you have the other two thirds to live, don’t allow the minority of your time consume the majority. Your self-worth should never be tied to the job title that you possess, people really don’t care how many widgets you created or how much money you made, they only care about how you made them feel.
Read more; write more. You will never find inspiration watching actors pretending to be someone else on a TV screen. Read a good book, preferably a biography of the world’s greatest. Reading brings out your deepest emotions and ties them to your ability to learn. Take the time to write, if even in point form. Writing allows you to make sense of your thoughts by engaging your sense of touch. When you can physically feel what you are thinking, it brings legitimacy to your imagination.
Be brave enough to walk away. When you need to stick around to prove you are right, you are only trying to validate your own insecurities. If you are sure enough about your position, you do not need anyone else to bend to it. Those who save time by walking away are those who have more time to reflect; those who have more time to reflect, have more time to become wise. People follow wisdom, they do not follow ignorance.
Make your health your priority. There are two things we can never get back in life: time and health. We are all ageing, some more rapidly than others. Do everything you can now to slow your impending decline. Eat great food with a purpose and exercise frequently with a real goal. Fitness is not a “nice to have” in your life, if you don’t have it, go get it while you still can, if you have it, keep it. Only death separates you from taking care of your body. Enjoy your body, but treat it well, it is the most important tool you will ever use.
Don’t spend what you don’t have. How can you fully appreciate what you don’t really own? While it is exciting to buy something now, tomorrow’s value comes from the sacrifice made yesterday. Living on a credit card is living a life of scarcity and forces you into self-supporting greed. Don’t look at living within your means as a bad thing, use it as motivation to improve your means and not your desire for more.