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I wish I knew this before leaving my corporate job
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This Monday I did a very powerful exercise. I made myself a cup of coffee, set a timer for 30 mins and started writing down all the lessons I would give my 29 year old self (just before he quit his corporate job). I then cleaned them up a bit so he could print them out and put them on his fridge. This was the final edit: 2) “Whether you think you can or you think you can’t either way you are right” - drill this quote into your brain. 3) Optimise for the long term (be patient) - you’ll have a tendency to overestimate what you can achieve in 1 year, but don’t underestimate what you can achieve in 10 - the secret to success is longevity. 4) If you want to double your success rate… double your failure rate. Celebrate your failures. The more you fail, the more you’ll learn. 5) Use these failures to create your Future Origin Story: the bigger the dragon, the bigger the Hero. 6) Approach life as an infinite game instead of a finite game. 7) Don’t skip the reps - it’s not about the outcome it’s about the person you become along the way. 8) Stop waiting for Clarity. Clarity comes by doing. Get yourself in motion. It’s in action you’ll discover things you would never discover by trying to figure them out. 9) Fear is not something you need to overcome, it’s possible to do things scared - that’s the definition of being brave. 10) Get a Coach. Someone to believe in you, someone to keep reminding you of your most powerful self. 11) Stop looking for certainty - make decisions, take action and trust that you’ll handle whatever happens. Your need for certainty is just another form of control. 12) Life is Happening FOR you not TO you - this is a CHOICE not a truth - Every Breakdown you’ll ever have will lead to a breakthrough. It might suck right now but one day you’ll look back and be grateful that it happened. 13) Own your interpretations - It’s not what happens to you that makes you suffer, it's how you interpret what happens to you. 14) Be the Creator of your experience, not the Victim of your circumstances. 15) Protect your thinking at all costs: stop reading the news, unfollow accounts, get a coach, find your people. The quality of your thinking determines the quality of your life. 16) Spend more time creating than consuming. 17) Whenever you say yes to something you automatically say no to something else - choose your Yeses wisely. 18) There is no secret or magical place where you will feel happy and fulfilled all the time. 19) Achieving more isn’t the solution, enjoying the journey is - You’ve already achieved the goals you said would make you happy. 20) Be grateful: Slow down, breathe… How lucky are you to be alive right now? 21) Be the Ocean not the Wave. Zoom out and learn to embrace the whole spectrum of your emotions - feel them fully - this is what it means to be alive. 22) “The best advice I ever received: no one else knows what they are doing either.” - Ricky Gervais - don’t take yourself so seriously - we’re all specks of dust on a big rock travelling at 100.000km/h. 23) Never ever say no to Pizza. PS: What I’m reading: Klara and the Sun - Kazuo Ishiguro |
Alex Ostergaard
Join 600+ readers of The Confident You Newsletter for weekly tips & tricks on how to increase Self-Confidence and live a more fulfilling life.
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