19 life lessons learned in the first half of my 30s
Ever since I was young I’ve had an interest towards how we function and how we can change — but it wasn’t really until the last 5 or so years that I’ve really dove deep into self improvement and actually implemented things that I’ve learned. Starting a business really makes you get to know yourself and makes you think about what areas you might want to evolve in, and since today is my birthday I’m feeling extra reflective.
These are all things that I really wish we all learned when we are young — if any of these have come up when I was younger they have definitely not been hammered home.
1 — set habit-or-action-related goals instead of outcome-related goals
Because ultimately you don’t have control of outcomes, but you do have quite a lot of control when it comes to habits and actions
I talk about this in a couple earlier blog posts so I’m not going to dive deeper here.
2–80/20 rule
This rule lives in a lot of areas in our lives. 80% of effects come from just 20% of the causes, so for example there is probably a 20% chunk of your work tasks that brings about 80% of the outcomes. Or it can be seen as 80% of the time we’re only using 20% of our clothes, we use 20% of our things in the kitchen 80% of the time. So it might be a good idea to figure out what is your 20% and focus on that when it comes to business. Or consider getting rid of some of your things that aren’t in your favorite 20%. Knowing about this would have saved the younger me a ton of money.
And on that note…
3 — memories are better than things
Out of all my best memories, I would not be able to tell you which shade of my eyeshadows I wore or which pair of jeans out of the probably 20 I owned in college. I could’ve spent time doing more fun things with my friends if I hadn’t obsessively spent every available euro on clothes and trying to find the perfect shade of shimmering-ish nude eyeshadow
4 — labeling (assumptions) vs details (what happened)
When thinking about other people, or when talking to other people, it is better for your mood and for communication to stick with details of what happened than try to label what happened. Labeling happens so fast, because it’s a way for our brains to make sense of what happened, but it can often be wrong and lead to negativity in the relationship. Labeling puts assumptions on the other person, and doesn’t leave things open to a different interpretation.
So if you want to confront someone about something that happened, it is better to stick to those details, like “Hey you told me that you would call last night, but didn’t, what happened?” instead of saying “You acted like a witch last night”. Labeling puts others in the position of having to defend themselves, which can just lead to more animosity.
5 — don’t take everything personally
Often we interpret things that people do as having something to do with how they feel about us, but most likely it’s about something that’s going on with them.
6 — happiness
If we always do things in pursuit of happiness and expect to be able to completely erase uncomfortable feelings, we’ll never reach happiness — because the nature of life is challenging. When we accept and maybe even embrace the fact that life brings with it every feeling under the sun, that’s when we can feel happier.
7 — women’s energy is different than the one traditionally expected in the workforce
Because our hormonal cycle is four weeks, instead of the 24 hours that it is for men, we cannot expect ourselves to have the exact same energy every single day. We have different energy in different parts — I talk about this more in this blog post about cyclical planning.
8 — sleep is important
You know this already, but if you’re not prioritizing sleep, this is a gentle reminder to do it. I’m extra conscious about this since I have Alzheimers in my family and I’ve learned that not sleeping well heightens your risk.
9 — effort does not equal result
Just because something feels fun, easy, and comes naturally to you, it doesn’t mean that the outcome can’t be really valuable.
10 — force vs power
I’m working on learning where I’m trying to use force to do things, and where could I instead use power to do things. I wish I could remember who I heard talking about this, it might have been on Yoga with Adriene where she talked about where are you working against yourself instead of with yourself, or it might have been Kate Northrup’s podcast.
11 — it’s ok to WANT
It feels like nowadays we “need” to say that we “need” something for it to sound legit enough, but it’s like we’ve forgotten that it’s ok to just WANT things. We are allowed to want. Which leads me to my next point,
12 — self care is not selfish or indulgent
It’s necessary for any living thing to take care of themselves. I talk about this a lot in my self care videos so I won’t dig any deeper into that here.
13 — worries can only hurt you in the present
Worry won’t take away anything that might happen, it only hurts you in the now. And that takes away energy from whatever it is that you need to be focusing on in the moment.
You can figure out if there’s something you *can* do to make the worry less likely to happen, but the act of worrying itself is not going to be helpful.
14 — there’s no point in arguing with reality
This was a lesson I learned during the first month or so of the stay-at-home orders. There was no point in thinking “If things were normal I could do xyz” — but that only goes down rabbit trails that aren’t possible. It’s more helpful to work with whatever limitations you have, instead of wishing for something else.
15 — the words we use affect our outcomes
Whatever we are thinking in our inner monologue, or saying out loud, affects our actions which affects our outcomes. If we say that “I’ll never be able to run 5 miles, go on vacation, or make money online”, then we won’t even try even if all these things were within our reach. If we stay open, we notice the opportunities and take action in a completely different way.
As a side note, the words we use also affect our mood. I try to not say “I have to” or “I should”, and instead say I get to or want to, or simply I will — because have to and should make that thing instantly sound negative, even though it’s something I ultimately just WANT TO do! I want to do laundry, so that I have clean clothes. I want to walk the dog, so that I get time to think and move first thing in the morning.
16 — it’s helpful to have a “north star”, mantra, or word/theme to follow
In June I felt like 2020 had felt heavy so far, so I started asking myself “what would make today lighter” or “what can I do to make today lighter”, or if I was doing something I would ask myself “how would I do this if this felt lighter” — and that really made my days feel a bit lighter. So I decided that for now I’m going to keep the word “light” as my word for the rest of the year, unless I at some point need to change it.
Something that simple can help you course-correct your day
17 — thriving is a continuous, conscious practice
Your brain’s main job is to help you survive — it doesn’t care about thriving.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
This is why it’s hard to break habits, to start something new, to do something differently from everybody else. Because whatever you’ve done this far has kept you alive — your ancient system’s #1 priority.
So stepping out of the patterns that are keeping you stuck, so that you can thrive in a way that aligns with your values, is a conscious and continuous practice. It’s an intentional override of survival mode.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
The good news is that it becomes easier with practice, as all things do!
18 — the small things matter
The big things that happen in life can mark some milestones, and the yearly trip can be something to look forward to — but the small everyday actions and choices are what build up most of your life. So it’s worth making sure that you are doing things that align with what you value
And lastly –
19 — time passes by anyway, so it doesn’t matter if it takes a long time to achieve something
If there is something you really want to work towards, just start.
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