Principles And Questions To Carry With You Through 2023
Todays topic was partially inspired by the book that I am currently reading; “Best Self” by Mike Bayer, where the aim of the book is to analyze 6 main areas of your life (Social, Personal, Health, Education, Relationships, Employment and Spiritual Development) and figure out what in these areas you are currently doing good with and what you still want to improve on. I like the book because it is full of interactive writing exercises and I like how it is structured, which makes it easy to follow along and make the best use out of the genuinely useful chapters.
For this reason, I wanted to write up a list of general life principles that I think everyone can benefit from following/ incorporating more often into their lifestyle and also a include a practical list of questions aimed at enhancing your own personal discovery.
Wishing you pleasant reading ahead 😊
GUIDING PRINCIPLES
Focus on doing your best instead of aiming for perfection
This is something that has become some wheat of a mantra for me, or something that I regularly repeat myself. I find that it is easy for me to get caught up in perfectionistic ideals where the goal is to do something absolutely right instead of focusing on learning and growth.
I find that this mindset can be very debilitating and genuinely slow down your progression as a person because
It makes you fear making mistakes which means that in theory you are afraid of learning and making progress - You essentially choose to stop living. You fear mistakes because they are a sign of you not being perfect in something which is an irrational thought in the first place because “perfection” in itself is a subjective experience.
It is a very unrealistic expectation to put onto yourself, meaning that when you do make a mistake (which we all do), you start obsessing over these little imperfections and you can become a very harsh critic on yourself.
Be your authentic self instead of changing yourself to fit others
This is an idea that is partially inspired by the book that I am reading and also my general experiences at university. I think that at the start when you are settling into a new environment and don't know many people, as soon as you do make a connecting with someone you can sometimes become very clingy and over dependent on that person for your social life. As a result you may start changing parts of yourself such as appearance, behavior or personality so that you can fit in more with that person or group, and feel less left out.
This makes sense to a degree as we all want to belong, but ask yourself is it worth the cost of loosing your real self? Would you prefer people to know you for your real self and enjoy being around that version of you or a made up facade you put up when you are around them?
I now consider it to be more important to be my genuine self when I am around people, meaning that I act, talk and think like the person I really am instead of someone I pretend to be. This makes it easier for me to attract other like minded people and see who I genuinely enjoy spending my time with.
Take things one by one and learn to take the time to slow down
This is a principle that often gets forgotten about, especially in the business of the every day, but I really believe that it is essentially to at least once a week or once a day find a moment to slow down a little bit. It can be for as little as taking 5-10 minutes for deep breaths in the morning or having a more laid back weekend afternoon. It is up to you, but implementing some more stillness into your life will help you with:
Reducing your levels of stress (Read more about stress here)
Better stress management for future stressful events
Becoming more aware of your thoughts and feelings in the present moment
Finding it easier to introspect and find out how certain things make you feel
Finding more enjoyment in the little things of everyday life
Life already happens fast enough around us, so why not take some time to momentarily slow it down?
I have also written about how to find more peace and tranquility in daily life here
Be mindful of your thoughts and the way you talk to yourself
I find the idea of negative self talk quite interesting because it makes me think, why would someone want to effectively be working against themselves? Against what is good for them? This essentially means that you are your own obstacle to your growth.
So, if you do find that, that you are someone who struggles with low self esteem and experiences chronic negative self talk such as “I suck at this, I will never be (x), I cant possibly do that, I am a failure etc.) then I would say the first step is to become aware of the thoughts you are having and when you get them. Consider what triggers this negative self talk for you; Is it when you are on social media browsing and comparing yourself to others or is it when you feel lonely and lack a support system?
Next, try to aim for developing a more open and growth orientated mindset where you reframe the negative things you say into more positive messages such as “I can do anything I put my mind and energy towards, I am just the way I need to be”. The more you practice these positive self affirmations and messages the more your mind will genuinely start believing them and as a result your confidence and what you achieve will greatly improve.
If you wouldn't say to someone else what your current negative self talk says to you, then don't say those things to yourself. It is only feeding into negativity when really you deserve to treat yourself like you treat any other person you really love - with love, belief and support.
Put your full presence and energy into any activity you intentionally choose to spend your time doing
This is a powerful thought because often we find ourselves multi tasking with different things or even if we are just doing one thing, we feel like our mind is in 100 other places and thoughts. Because of this, I think it can be beneficial to say to yourself that whatever you will be working on today or within the next x amount of time, you will choose to focus exclusively on that, and all other things will wait for after.
This will not only improve the quality of your work and sharpen your thought process behind these tasks (reducing the number of time consuming mistakes you make), but also shorten the amount of time it takes you to get something done.
Take care of yourself first and then everything else
This is often heard as some what a cliche but it does carry truth to it. If you find that you are not operating from your best level of self (poor sleep, low energy levels, distracted thoughts etc.) then not only will this make it much harder to tackle anything you have going on that day but also make it much harder for you to help others and maintain good social relations.
You feel much more fulfilled when you don't just live life for yourself but you live it by being of service to others
Often we might start dong things from a personal gain standpoint where we are doing things exclusively to benefit ourselves in what ever way that may be. While it is important to do things which bring benefit and pleasure to you, it is equally important that what you are doing, is also serving others in some shape or form. Any job or activity can be seen as solving a problem or meeting a need that people have, with which you are providing help, utility and service.
We all want to feel like we are valued and that we are working towards something bigger than just ourselves because when we find that balance of doing something which lights a spark inside you while also creating work that is meaningful and useful to others, that is where true happiness and fulfillment are found.
Go beyond yourself and ask yourself in what ways can you be helpful, useful or generally of service to to others in your everyday (it can be small or big)
Genuine happiness and satisfaction can not be obtained through external sources alone
Nowadays it is very easy to be convinced with the idea that sustained and long term happiness ands satisfaction can be bought through external means such as material goods, fancy lunches and having a surplus of everything. While everyone needs a certain level of materialism to be content and meet their needs, an excess here will not make you any happier especially when we are talking about being genuinely satisfied by your life.
The point I am trying to make is that while materialistic goods can spark temporary moments of joy and happiness, it is only a short term fix that quickly wears off leaving us thirsty for more; What was previously the goal for us is no longer enough and so we continuously want more.
This is a sign to reevaluate your priorities and really consider what brings you genuine long term happiness. Most often, true happiness arises both from internal sources such as having a good level of self esteem and attitude towards yourself as well as your environment such as the people you surround yourself with and the experiences you live.
Quit complaining and be proactive about your problems instead
Quite a simple statement but one that we often forget, since we are all sometimes victims of this.
When it comes to problems that you do have control over, you either have the option of continuing to complain about it and nothing changes or you choose to act and solve that problem so that it no longer bothers you.
When it comes to issues that are outside of your circle of control, then you can either place less importance on those problems/ decide to accept it and move on with our life or if you really do care, then do what you can to get into a position where you do have a influence over the issue and try to resolve it that way.
No one has a perfect past, so learn to make peace with anything that might be troubling you and learn to move on
Linking back to the previous point, with any traumatic, negative or unwanted experience in your past, you have the ability of analyzing your emotions towards that particular event and then coming to the stage where you have analyzed the problem enough that you are ready to accept that it is a thing of the past and can move on from that experience.
Of course it is useful to learn out of any negative experience, but being stuck in a permanently negative state of rumination or regret is also not the point, so make peace with your past and - It will almost feel like a weight has been lifted from your shoulders and you have gotten a fresh new energetic start.
Never choose to stop learning and growing in life
This links a lot to the first point I made in this list, where we often think that as soon as we have stopped going to school or getting a formal education, that we have learnt everything that we needed to and we can stop learning.
I think this is a wrong approach, especially since each year our world is becoming ever more complex, interconnected and fast paced meaning that new information, products, technologies, ideas, theories, solutions and advancements are coming out. So if we really want to feel like an integrated unit within a society, it is our job to stay up to date as much as possible and continuously absorb new information around us. Be like a full time “sponge”; thirsty for knowledge.
REFLECTIVE QUESTIONS
Because I believe that reflection is a very powerful and genuinely useful tool to learn how to use, I wanted to write a list of general reflective questions which you can use at any time and I think are relevant to any individual, whatever stage in your life you might currently be in.
These questions are meant for your own personal introspection and to get to know your current strengths, weaknesses, points to improve on and trying to identify what kind of life really resonates with you. You can even answer these same questions every couple of months or at the start of each year to see how your own answers change as you learn more about yourself.
If you are additionally interested in the process of journaling and reflecting, I have written the following blog posts on this topic:
What are your top 5 core values and do you currently live through those values? If not, how could you change that, or is it that those values are not your true values?
Consider what actually matters most to you in the end? What actually makes a “good day” good for you?
Which beliefs/ mindsets, old routines and genuine fears are holding you back from doing what you genuinely want to do and living your best life?
What would your ideal day look like? What would you spend your time doing and who would you be with?
What are activities that make you feel truly alive and when was the last time you did them? How could you do them more often?
What are the constructive habits that you want to build and unhealthy habits you want to let go of?
What are some things you currently want to make a change about in your life (Work related, personal, hobbies, health, relationships, attitude etc.)
What are things which are currently worrying your mind? Are those worries and fears rational and if so, what would be the best way for you to manage them?
In what ways am I living life authentically and true to me right now? In what ways do I still have to create alignment between what I currently do and who I really want to be?
Who are people that genuinely inspire you and continue to fill you with new uplifting energy?
What are some things or people you could not imagine living without? How can you take them less for granted and express gratitude for them more often?
What would my absolutely ideal life look like? (Where would you live, your occupation, family?, hobbies, social circle etc.)
I hope that you were able to get some genuinely useful tools and insight through todays post and that it helps you on your own reflective personal growth journey.
Feel free to adapt any of the questions above to make them more suitable or specific to you.
Thank you for taking your time today to read this ☀️
