41 Things I’ve Learned in my 41 years on Earth
Recognising beauty is the fastest way to presence. Surrounding yourself with beauty is the fastest way to happiness and contentment.
Recognising the actions you regret (and saying sorry) is the fastest way to transform your behaviour — if you understand what you did and what you would like to do instead.
Progress comes from taking the next simple step forward. The step leads to fulfilment, fulfilment leads to momentum, momentum leads to speed. Big success comes from small steps in the right direction.
Mistaking wants for needs is the fastest way to create panic, stress, and worry.
If you’re worrying about something, you need a plan — no matter how unlikely the scenario. Without a plan, you’ll keep worrying.
The problem is never the problem. Upgrade the environment and the problem disappears.
The fastest way to flow is to find your four areas of genius. These are gifts you’ve always had.
Your areas of genius are often buried by stressful periods in life. Finding them again is like switching on a light.
Your purpose is something you’ve always had. You’ve been happiest when pursuing it and most disconnected when not.
The opposite of addiction is connection. Ask yourself what connection you’re missing that your brain is trying to replace with your addiction, and see what comes back.
Habits are gifts that allowed you to survive a past moment. If they no longer serve you, they can be upgraded once you deconstruct them properly.
Everything we know is wrong. All we can ever do is become less wrong. Protecting your “rightness” is insanity that will only hurt you.
We are part of nature. The idea that we must kill nature in order to live is to say we must kill ourselves to live. That’s nuts.
Words are magic. Extract the meaning of your words and you’ll unlock your deepest fears, your deepest desires, and true happiness.
Expand your emotional vocabulary and you’ll become more rational, creative, purposeful, and skilful in communication than ever before.
Listening is the single most important skill you’ll ever work on. You’ll never master it, but giving it attention is the best thing you’ll ever do.
Listening isn’t just about other people’s words. It’s about your words, your body, silence, the planet.
Explore your feelings rather than dismiss them. If you feel guilty when not at work, ask yourself what’s causing that guilt and what would have to happen to remove it.
Write about what is true. Don’t judge it as good or bad. Mastering truth-telling is the quickest path to reducing fear of judgement.
We’re hardwired to fear judgement, criticism, and failing to meet expectations. Expect to feel discomfort. Don’t fight to make it go away.
One of the best ways to learn something is to teach it to someone else.
The world’s job is to ask things of you. Don’t resent it for that, but know that serving other people’s agendas above your own will likely stop you from living the life you want.
Giving other people solutions is rarely in your best interest — or theirs.
The most beautiful person in the room is the one with the most trust and certainty in who they are.
Always assume you don’t understand until you can repeat back, in your own words, what you think they mean.
Self-sabotage means deliberate destruction. That’s not what’s happening when you don’t do what you said you’d do. You’re meeting your brain’s safety needs. To change your behaviour, you need to locate that need and serve it another way.
Your body is always telling you exactly what it needs. If you’re trying to force it, you’re going in the wrong direction.
Don’t use threats, guilt, or motivation to move your kids. The short-term gain is not worth the long-term pain — for them or for you.
The only way to learn a new skill is to do it badly at first, then keep going until it isn’t bad anymore.
You are who you’re meant to be. Acknowledge your awesomeness. That doesn’t mean betterness. Everyone is awesome. If you see yours, others will be more likely to see theirs.
Attendance and presence are two different things. Look at which one you’re doing — and don’t use willpower to get from one to the other. Create a plan.
Ask yourself what choices you have in this situation, even if you won’t take them. Knowing they’re available will connect you more deeply with your choice.
Always support others to explore their freedoms. Loss of freedom is the second most stressful experience after survival.
Internal physical pain (unless you were hit by a bus or fell down a hole) isn’t the result of an incident but your brain’s interpretation of your internal environment. Improve the internal environment, not just the area of pain.
Curiosity will transform every single one of your relationships. Humans are endlessly fascinating.
Sleep is an involuntary act — it can’t be forced. You can only ever create the environment.
Everything that happens in the body is a product of something happening in the brain.
Past failures hold lessons. When extracted, they change both the memory and your nervous system today.
Moving to a new country is transformative in a way that’s hard to describe. I highly recommend doing it.
Regardless of your school experience, you are a learning machine. You just have your own system. If you define it, you can harness it to create happiness.
All goals are a desire for a feeling. Define that feeling and create it now. That doesn’t mean not pursuing goals — but letting the future hold your happiness is no way to live.
There it is, 41 things I’ve learned. Happy birthday to me xx 😘
