Lessons from a 40-something guy (learn from my mistakes).
I’ve swallowed so much crap from my 30s to my 40s that I’d give anything to go back to talk to my old self and give him some tips.
Since I can’t, I’ll take revenge by sharing those tips with all the people having a hard time at that age, so it won’t take as long as it took me to get out of the hole.
Let’s start.
1. Focus on your Achilles heel.
If I could travel back to 2010, I would tell my old self, “I know it sounds counter-intuitive, but forget about yoga, meditation, self-help books, and journaling. Just stop doing what’s hurting you.”
Doing more things only masks the problem and exacerbates it because it often allows you to continue the bad habits.
Instead of trying to do more, the key is to do less.
And to do that, you don’t have to obsess about getting rid of all the bad habits at once.
Focus on your Achilles heel: that habit that has you enslaved.
In my case, it was tobacco; I smoked three packs a day.
Quitting smoking produced a butterfly effect that changed my life completely.
- Quitting smoking made me start running.
- Starting to run made me improve my diet.
- Improving my eating caused me to quit alcohol.
- Quitting alcohol led me to meditation (and losing my toxic companies).
- Meditation led me to read spiritual books.
- Reading spiritual books made me find the meaning of my life: writing.
Lesson: simplify. Focus on quitting the worst of your bad habits. Put all your energy into it instead of scattering yourself into a thousand things, and you will move forward much faster.
2. Spiritual growth leads you to exponential growth.
I don’t care if you are an atheist, Buddhist, agnostic, or Christian. If you are struggling and want to get better quickly, you must understand that spirituality matters.
Life is a spiritual battle of yourself against yourself.
The lack of values, self-esteem, awareness, self-confidence, etc., made you go into the dark, Right?
So is a spiritual issue.
You have to break away from the world of appearances and focus on being a good person.
Yes, you read that right: focus on being a good person.
Forget about selfishness, appearances, and competing; all of that got you into the mess in the first place.
By doing this, you will start to surround yourself with better people, which will open new doors for you.
Lesson: focus on being a good person and deliver what you promise with excellence and generosity. You will start earning good money because people will know you pursue quality in what you do and care about people, not just their money.
3. The enemies you can’t escape are the teachers of the lessons you need to learn.
In my 30s, my ego made me believe I was the master of the universe.
And believing yourself to be the master of the universe sooner or later leads to victimhood. And you start to blame (rightly or wrongly) everyone.
And the truth is that looking for guilty people only makes you waste your time.
I believed that my mother was the enemy, my brother was the enemy, and my father was the enemy.
And I didn’t want to make peace with any of them for various compelling reasons.
But things started to go well when life forced me to do so.
A lot of blocked energy keeps you anchored to a mediocre life when you carry hatred and resentment towards someone in your heart.
I’m not telling you to go live with your enemies, but you must learn to move on. Because moving on and not getting attached to things and people is the lesson you need to learn the most.
Lesson: when you get attached to old resentments, you are anchoring yourself to the past, which always leads to suffering and holds you back. It would be best to learn to flow into the bright future that awaits you, and you can’t carry a backpack of resentment. So make peace with your enemies. Let them go and move forward.
Takeaway.
If I had learned these three lessons in my 30s, I would not have hit rock bottom at 33, and I would surely be infinitely further along in my career and personal life in my forties.
So keep these three things in mind.
- Cleanse yourself of your addictions and bad habits.
- Pursue being a good person because feeling useful and appreciated by the community gets you out of depression and fills your life with job opportunities (no kidding).
- Forgive yourself and others (you don’t have to do it face to face but in your heart) so you can focus on what matters: moving forward.
A virtual hug
AG
Leave a Reply