1. Take Complete Responsibility for EVERYTHING. This means your education, your health, your relationships, your finances, the situations you find yourself in, the circumstances you’re faced with, the mosquitos biting your legs, EVERYTHING. If you don’t take responsibility in this way, you begin to point fingers. You position yourself as a victim. You become weak.
2. Reflect. On life. On who you think you are. On your beliefs. On your mistakes. Your strengths. Your preferences. Everything.
3. Become OK with being bad at something. The giants in every field all started as rookies. But they started. Are you going to start, or are you going to let being bad stop you from practicing and getting good?
4. Become OK with mistakes. Nobody is perfect. Everyone makes mistakes. The voice in our head likes to criticize. Notice that. Accept it. And move on.
5. Adapt to circumstances at hand. If you’re taking responsibility, taking action even though you’re bad, and reflecting on things that didn’t go “your way”, you now have some data to play with. Refer to this data. Not to criticize yourself, but to learn. What worked? What didn’t? What’s needed now?
6. Don’t Fear Failure. I remember reading somewhere that FEAR is just False Expectations Appearing Real. Yeah, that phrase might downplay the emotions we experience, but it’s still good to remember. Fear of failure is a bad use of imagination.
7. Accept Rejection. It happens. If you’re following rules #1, #2, and #5, it’s a good thing that it happens.
8. Know your values, and stick to them. People who don’t know their values typically adopt the values of others. Or they go on dragging themselves through life wondering why nothing makes sense and everything sucks.
9. Be Enthusiastic about what you do. If you’re not, why do it? If you are, but can’t find the energy, what part of your life are you neglecting? Your health? Your relationships? What’s got you creating resistance to the natural flow of excitement about doing what you want to do?
These are just some I thought of today before I went to get some ice cream (rainbow sherbet, if you’re curious). Feel free to add your own or let me know what you thought of these.