Essential life truths that fuel your inspiration

“Life is really simple. But we insist on making it complicated.”

— Confucius

We’ve all had days like this. We make up feeling cluttered, directionless, and generally in a bad mood. It shows up on our face and in our behaviours and people say we’ve woken up on the wrong side of the bed. We grudgingly get into the car to drive to work and we get stuck behind a slow coach. We get stuck in traffic. We finally make it to the office and someone’s parked in our parking space. By the time we get into the office, we are in such a foul mood, we struggle to make it to 9 AM. In fact, we’re probably better off just going home and go back to bed. Because from experience, we all know that when your day starts like this, the rest of the day is NOT going to get better. That’s just wishful thinking.

But that is life. Things happen. The interpretation of whether they are good or bad is provided by ourselves. We get frustrated at events that we perceive to be bad, why does it have to happen to me, what am I always the one to miss out. But when we ACCEPT that these are just “events” that happen and that they are neither good nor bad, we remove their ability (or power) to drag down the rest of our day.

There are certain things in life that are just truths. The sooner we accept that it is what it is (e.g. gravity just is, there is no fighting it) then the sooner we can focus on ways to get around or even leverage these truths to become the best versions of ourselves.

You have what you have because you’ve accepted it

If you are not happy with what’s in your life, with your relationships, your job, your friends, etc. then it’s not because life has dealt you a difficult hand and sent these circumstances into your life. It’s because you’ve accepted them at a subconscious level. If an office jerk comes into your life, you don’t consciously say, fine, I’ll accept him/her into my life.

But, by not taking action to keep away from them, by not putting your foot down when they ask you for a favour and you know they are going to take credit for your ideas, then you’ve indirectly accepted them.

The action is going to be easier said than done, but you’ve got to make a start. Start by being firm on what you will no longer tolerate. It’s the first step to removing the things that upset you in life. Then from there, slowly develop a list of what you will accept. Over time, you will eliminate the things you don’t want and have more of the things you do want.

Regret is worse than fear

We all know this. But in the heat of the moment, we often overlook this simple truth. By the time we realise it, it’s always in retrospect and always with regret. It can happen anytime:

You have a pertinent point to make in a meeting but chose not to because you think someone might say that’s a dumb point. Then a few minutes later, someone else makes that same point and gets a rapturous response. Now you regret it.
The waiter brings the wrong order to you and walks away. You think about complaining but stay quiet because you don’t want to make a fuss. It looks edible right? You dig into it. By the third mouthful, you regret not saying anything but by then you’ve eaten enough of the dish to not be able to return it.
You see that gorgeous girl in the food court. She gets your heart racing. You think about approaching but don’t because… well because she might reject you. You watch as she walks away. Now you’re filled with regret and never see her again.

What’s the action? Well, there’s no magic cure for fear. But start by keeping a journal of the moments when you let fear trump your decisions. This helps you to reflect on it and learn from it. Then starting small, next time you feel fear, think back to your journal and then speak up. Soon you’ll find your threshold starts to increase.

If you haven’t failed, you haven’t pushed yourself

Whether its to improve your business, your career prospects, or self improvement. If you haven’t experienced failure, then it’s a very clear sign that you haven’t pushed yourself to the boundaries of your capabilities. And if you haven’t pushed yourself far enough, you are never going to move forward. Look into any successful person in the world. Not just money but people who’s actions and thinking have made a big difference… Ghandi, Mother Teresa, etc. They all had major failures (and major haters). Only through learning from our failures can we move forward. Apple is what it is today because Steve Jobs was fired from Apple 1.0, learnt his lesson, and came back to create the Apple we know today.

If you think you’ve been very successful but have not had a failure. That’s great. But be prepared. That failure will come, and if you don’t hold onto this simple truth in life, that single failure will cause you to crumble and you may not get back up again.

Being busy is a dangerous illusion

As much as we say we hate it, being busy (especially at work) feels great. First, it makes us feel like we’re invaluable to the company. It makes the day go faster. It makes us feel important, and depending on the task, our brains can switch off and just execute.

But being busy is not the same as being productive. If you are on the journey of self improvement, being busy can stop you from trying something new, thinking differently, and progress your goals.

So always carve out some time in your day to stop and reflect on what you’re doing. Especially when you are busy. Make sure that some part of your business is aligned with your goals so that you are progressing towards them.

Ask for forgiveness, not permission

Got a great idea at work? Just start on it. Don’t ask for permission. Firstly, the person you ask permission from may not understand your idea and says no. Then it’s dead in the water before it even starts. And, if you do start it, then you are actively going behind their backs. Do you think they’ll support your idea afterwards?

So get started on that great idea. Then once it’s more formed and you have a clearer grasp of the viability of the idea and what’s needed, you can then tell your boss that this is what you’re doing. By now you should be able to demonstrate its merits (it’s not airy fairy) and he/she can clearly see its potential.

Life is short

Steve Jobs said it best, death is the one destination we all share. If you ever need inspiration or something to get that fire in your belly going. If you ever think you need somebody else’s approval. Just think about this one simple fact: live everyday as if it’s your last because one day you will be right.

A simple trick I use whenever I lack motivation is this. Assuming an average life span of 85 years, I count how many Mondays are left for me. Nothing gets your amped up more than realising the number of Mondays left is not infinite, not in the thousands, but in the lower hundreds… and each week that number counts down by one.

Blog Photo by Jon Ly on Unsplash

Further Reading

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