“You can’t go back and change the beginning. But you can start where you are and change the ending.”

— C.S. Lewis

Time is the one thing you can't get back. It is the most precious commodity in life and once spent, there is no recovery. Yet most of us continue to procrastinate. We continue to put off what we know we should do today. We continue to accept lower standards for ourselves.

There is a famous line in aviation that all pilots are taught from day 1 of flight school:

"Learn from the mistakes of others. Because you won't live long enough to make them yourself."

The team at Evan Carmichael have done a great job in compiling the 5 key lessons most people learn too late in life. When there isn't enough time left, when there isn't enough youth left, for you change and become the best version of yourself. So watch carefully, and watch with intent. Because if you apply these 5 lessons today, you will be taking action and be on the path to becoming the best version of yourself.

1. Don't sleep walk through life - Warren Buffett

If you are not happy with your job, if you are not happy with aspects of your life, then do something about it. Many of us just sleep walk through our careers. The jobs, the titles we have are through sheer luck rather than through meticulous planning and execution.

Sit down, be silent, be alone, and spend some time thinking about what you actually want to achieve and what career your actually want. Don't think that you will eventually land in the role that you want, because that's like "... saving up sex for your old age..."

2. Live life without fear - Will Smith

We've covered fear in many blog posts. Fear will never disappear. You can't ever make fear go away. But what you can do is learn to overcome the effect fear has on you. But what you can do is instil in your mind the realisation that in our modern society, and in our journey of self improvement, most of the fear we have is unfounded. You can make mistakes, you can have embarrassing moments. But it is through the constant practice of taking the little actions that instil fear, which over time help you to overcome the power it has on you.

"... the best things in life, everything that you want, is on the other side of fear..."

3. Stop Complaining - Gary Vaynerchuck

"The person you become on the last day of your life, is the best version of yourself you could've been."

Stop complaining and start doing. Shit happens, things go wrong. You can't control when unfortunate events happen. But you can change your reaction to it. Unfortunate events or set backs in life knock you down. But you are the person keeping yourself down. So stop complaining or whinging. Get up and try again.

4. Know where you are going - Simon Sinek

We are flexible about the route but we are fixed in the destination. When you know clearly where you want to go, you can then figure out all the various combination of paths in life to get there.

Building off Warren Buffett's point, be clear about who you want to be, what you want to achieve, and the career path you want to have. Once you have these clear goals or destinations, you can then be flexible in how to get there. When set backs occur, you can figure out a way around them and continue towards your goal.

But when you don't have a clear goal and a set back occurs, what do you think is going to happen? You're either going to get stuck and stop where you are. Or it'll send down a different tangent, which may not always be where you want to go.

5. Enjoy life - Jack Ma

You are in this world to enjoy your life, you are not here to work. As you go on your path of self improvement, as you work towards your goals (or work to define your life goals), enjoy the journey. Learn to appreciate the little things in life that give you joy. That moment when a complete stranger smiles at you, that moment when you give up your seat on the bus for the pregnant lady. All these moments add up to make your life worth while.

So there you have it. 5 key lessons from five of the world's most prominent figures. If this is the type of lessons they've learnt in life and have become successful, I think it's safe to say that these lessons are at least worth a deeper consideration if not implementation.

Photo by Thought Catalog on Unsplash

Further Reading

How to easily command respect in a group

Commanding genuine respect, one that doesn’t rely on your position power is one of the hardest things to do for an introvert. There are five simple actions we can adopt straight away that can help us to establish our presence in the room and command the attention and focus on what we have to say.

How to be Value-Adding

Being seen as value-adding is one of the biggest planks in the foundation of your career success. Here are four simple steps you can take, which if you do consistently, will guarantee that you seen to be contributing meaningfully at work and maximise your chances of promotion and success.

Looking confident while working remotely

It’s hard to project confidence while on video calls. It acts like a barrier that stops us from achieving the best version of ourselves. Be it the sound quality or just trying to get your message across amongst the traffic of voices all trying to chime in at the same time. Here are six simple things to do that will give you the best chance at projecting the best version of yourself on a video call.

How to overcome Social Anxiety

Social anxiety is the single biggest blocker to introverts recognising the best version of themselves. The rapid heart beat, sweat, and mind blanks cause us to lose our perfectly thought through logic. Instead, a jumbled mass of words and ideas come out. The solution isn’t to stop feeling anxious. It is to recognise it and then start focus on the people you are speaking to.

Confrontations - Doing it the right way

Confrontations need not be daunting and one sided. The traditional leadership theories that focus on feelings and behaviours aren’t wrong. But they are missing a core component that make a massive difference. There is a simple framework from Simon Sinek that ties it all together.

STOP your nice guy / girl behaviours

Stop saying yes when you want to say no, and learn to prioritise your needs first. Nobody else is going to make your career goals come true except you. There are simple steps you can take now to stop sabotaging yourself through your nice guy / girl behaviours.

Being the best version of yourself while Working From Home

Don’t let the pandemic cause you to regress on your self improvement journey and fall into the comfort trap while working from home. Take charge of your new routine and refocus on these six foundation steps to get back on your self-improvement journey and use this opportunity to become the best version of yourself.

The key to demonstrating confidence

Your ability to demonstrate confidence is key to your career success, progression, and getting what you want. If you understand frame and can hold it in any interaction, then you will come across as confident. Here are some simple but highly impactful techniques you can use to project confidence.

The key to promotion for introverts

The key to promotion for introverts is to unleash our deep thinking and put them into practice. The mindset shift is to realise, you have to demonstrate you are operating at the next level before you actually get promoted. There is a simple way to demonstrate this by changing what you say and do when you encounter an issue. Use this principle to change your mindset and you will find success.

How to be charming as an introvert

There are a few simple actions you can take, to be as charming as Keanu Reeves, who is a stand-out as an introvert in a very extrovert dominated industry. It doesn’t require you to pretend to be someone you are not, but these five simple actions, give you the tools to embrace your introversion and use them to genuinely connect and interact in the most value-adding way. You will be both charming and unforgettable.

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