#7- Scarcity can be a great strength.
Life is not a game, but if it were, it would be the most challenging game of all.
Life is not a game, but if it were, the players with more information would be more likely to win.
Life is not a game, but if it were, I would want to know the lessons that others players have learned along the way to improve my chances of winning.
And in keeping with that philosophy, I have created this article with what I believe are seven rare and valuable lessons that I have learned in these 40 years of life and that, without a doubt, constitute a tremendous competitive advantage.
Let’s start.
1. Big changes do not happen as you expect.
When you want to change something, usually, that doesn’t change. But other things change.
Usually, you expect to change something, but in the end, the only thing that changes is what you expect. Read that again.
I expected to find a job and become a great salesman when I moved to Madrid. And here am I, writing self-help articles for living and writing books for one of the world’s largest publishing houses.
In the end, I changed what I expected for my life, and I dedicated myself to something different from what I had in mind.
Life will do that to you constantly. It will change your plans and dreams. And you have to learn to adapt.
2. Attention is fuel. You have to know where to spend it.
If you spend the day thinking about other things, no matter how important these things may seem to you, you will never achieve your goals.
Your true objectives are the most expensive to pay for. And in life, the highest price you can pay for something is time. Therefore, if you do not pay attention to your objective, you waste your time, and if you do not pay the price, it is not fulfilled.
Stop focusing all your life on the recent political scandal, the latest fashion wave, and the new entertainment of the moment. Or you will never achieve anything because your attention will go directly to the pockets of politicians, news, celebrities, and entertainment platforms, instead of to that goal you intend to fulfill.
Your dreams are paid for with quality time. And quality time is focused time.
And don’t forget that your daily attention span is finite; once you spend it, you won’t have any more until you rest. Invest it wisely.
3. You can modify your past.
The relationship between causes and effects took you here: to this moment. That’s a fact. But you can change who you are by remembering those causes and effects differently.
Why not better our lives by rebuilding the history we talk to ourselves?
You can do it by the imaginary reconstruction of your past. Truth be told, all is relative, and we are highly suggestible human beings. Let’s change the narrative! So, look kindly at your past, tell yourself a new history, and start a new life, a better one.
4. Writing is a superpower.
Writing will set you free.
Writing you can say what you can’t at loud. And by writing those things you can’t speak about in public, you free yourself from much pain and frustration.
Also, you clean up your mind and put in order your thoughts. Writing, sometimes, is the only way to understand what’s going on in our lives.
Let me give you two pieces of powerful advice to improve the effectiveness of the writing in your journey.
- Read: You can’t write what you feel if you don’t know the words to express your feelings. Gratefully, tons of writers throughout history have been in the same place you are now. Check their books to put words to your feelings.
- Write down your dreams: your dreams are signs from your unconscious mind. Please write down your dreams when you wake up because dreams are volatile since you cannot reconstruct the chain of thoughts that led you to them when you are awake. And if you wake up with a dream in your head, it will be for a reason. It’s the first thing your mind thinks of after hours of conscious inactivity.
5. The internal clock of habits
Everyone knows that habits are associated with rituals: the cigarette after a meal, the glass of wine before going to bed, etc. But few realize that patterns are associated with schedules.
You usually eat at a particular time and go to bed at a specific time.
So if you smoke after meals or drink before going to bed, you will do it at a particular time, if you change the schedule, you will break the ritual, and it will be easier for you to stop the habit x or g that you want to get out of your life.
I did it, and with it, I managed to quit smoking and drinking.
6. You need gaps.
Without gaps, there are no spaces to fill.
There is no room for more information if you think you know it all. You will have to unlearn what you have learned to make room for more information.
It would help if you also had gaps of inactivity to make room for creativity.
Nothing new will be born without blank spaces, and you will burn out.
Learn to be bored, go for a walk, and make room for the novelty to find its place.
7. Scarcity can be a great strength.
Your shortcomings will make you look for new tools.
New tools will lead you to new ways of doing things.
The new ways of doing things will form a new canon, a unique methodology, and you will produce new items.
What I have just described is the cycle of progress and innovation.
You need scarcity to produce something new.
Therefore your scarcity can be your strength.
If you don’t have the money, you will develop your creativity; if you don’t know how to use something, you will give it a new use until whatever you do becomes unique.
And that will make you indispensable.
A virtual hug
AG
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