Last week I turned 21. Unexpectedly I got sick on this exact date, so I had nothing else better to do than sitting at home and fighting the flu. Being at home and responding to all my friends who were greeting me for my birthday via phone and social media, got me thinking: “How am I going to improve myself in the upcoming years? How am I going to be sure that I live to the fullest, give my best and thrive?”.

In the first place I thought I had to be sure that I had learned something from my previous mistakes and experiences.

Therefore I questioned myself: “What did I learn, the hard or the easy way, that I would always remember and always try to keep in my life?”

I started listing some things on a piece of paper. Later on I decided to review my “fundamental lessons” and share them with you.

So, here are the “lessons” I find important for me. Conclusions, I turned into principles, which I will always apply in my life so that I give my best in what I do.

Everything is a matter of perception

This is probably the foundation for me.

I can literally choose how to perceive everything that happens to me and to my world. And this largely determines how I feel about it.

Think about paintings – they mean something different to every person. They provoke different thoughts and feelings, all because of perception.

On the other hand, perception is determined by a lot of factors – past experiences, childhood, dreams, goals, parents, everyday surroundings but generally perception is something that we can modify and change, as long as we want to. This automatically means that via perception we can improve or worsen the quality of our lives.

Some people may perceive an event as a tragedy, “the end of the world”, others may have positive feelings about it and see big potential for growth.

So remember it`s up to you to decide how to see things and respectively what to do about them.

Treat people with respect

Our everyday lives consist of human connections. We have always heard our parents say “Treat others the same way you want them to treat you”. They were damn right!

Nothing makes me feel better than treating everyone with respect and love. Even the people you do not like, or the ones that don`t like you. Show them some love! Show them something different! Anyone can be rude, disrespectful and mean, but nowadays it is hard to be honest, kind, loving and open to others.

Benjamin Franklin said: “Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain and most fools do.“

Furthermore, people will remember your attitude and link your character to the positive feelings that you triggered through your behavior.

Life is a sum of ups and downs

Hundreds of times I felt lousy, stuck with my life, or just in a bad mood for no reason, unhappy with the current situation.Probably you`ve had these moments too. However, down moments are integral part of our lives and we will never be able to fight over them unless we accept them.

By “accept” I do not mean resign and just stick to your desperation, but first realize that you are in a down moment and second, find a way to get yourself out of it – think of solutions, concentrate on what can be done, exercise, read an inspiring book, talk to your role models, reflect on your goals or past achievements, appreciate your existence.

Enough for “downs”. When you are in an “up” moment, feel it and enjoy it at its fullest. Then deconstruct it and find how you can bring these moments more frequently into your life.

Nothing matters if you do not have a good health

We’ve heard that too, but do you realize how precious good health is? Do you realize how blessed you are to be healthy and in a great body condition?

It is a big deal! And since good health is given to us for free, we`d better do our best to keep us healthy. And what I found out is that it ain’t that complicated, it comes to few aspects and some simple rules you could apply:

• clean air (you can “find it” if you go for a walk in the nature)
• healthy and green food
• regular water intake
• regular physical activity throughout the day
• enough sleep
• positive attitude towards life

Find your own healthy habits, apply them and skyrocket your health, body and mind condition.

Taking action is better than not taking action

Taking action and failing is way better than not taking action.

A favorite Wayne Gretzky’s quote of mine is: “You miss 100% of the shots you do not take.”

Take more action. Do more steps.

The worst thing that can happen is to make a mistake. That’s it! Nothing more. And when you make a mistake, you learn from it and you give it another shot. 😉

Your mind and attitude are really powerful tools! (They are our biggest assets)

So powerful that you literally determine the course of your life while using them. It depends on you whether the course will be positive, negative or neutral.

This is a really long topic and there are thousands of different opinions on it. What I know for myself is that I should always keep my attitude either positive and realistic, because negativity hasn`t helped anyone.

I also know that I should constantly sustain my level of motivation and state of mind through practices which work for me: reading, keeping a gratitude journal, surrounding myself with awesome human beings, listening to more music etc.

Be thankful for everything you have.

You never know what is going to happen tomorrow, so just live everyday as it is your last and just make the most of it. (I do not mean: “do a number of crimes, spend all your money and rob a bank”). But simply enjoy what you have and stop looking at what you ain’t got, this is the first step to abundance.

Tell people that you love them, be brave and honest. Listen to the birds sing, go out with your friends, watch the clouds in the sky, eat ice cream (moderately) and just enjoy one more day on planet earth.

This does not mean having no goals and perspective for the future. In fact…

Set huge, realistic goals for the future. Make them inspiring

Big goals motivate us more than average or small goals.

Some people don`t have any set goals but for me it is crucial to have some in order to know where I am heading at.

Think of a goal you have – money, health, fitness, business, now take them few percent higher, so you have this drive and stimuli, to work towards them even more.

We`d better overachieve than underachieve. Make it big…but realistic.

What Donald Trump says is: ”As long as you are going to be thinking anyway, think BIG.”

So when you are thinking big, start small

No achievement is complicated when broken down into small steps. Make few little wins every day, so when they add up at the end of the week, month, year, your life… you would have achieved your big goals.

Deconstruct your Huge realistic goals into easily achievable chunks and start working towards them today.

(Shout out to Jason Ball, who drew my attention to the importance of this big idea.)

Mentorship is king

There are a lot of people which are returning from the journey that you are heading at. No matter if we are talking about business, relationships, health and fitness or personal growth, there is always someone that will have eagerness to help you and pass his/her knowledge to you.

Robin Sharma says: “Smart people learn from their mistakes, but brilliant people learn from the mistakes of others.”

Mentorship is a really strong tool that I use in my own life because of two reasons:

First, by having a mentor I directly soak the knowledge that this person has about a given topic. I see what he did wrong, where he succeeded, what he learned and where I should be careful.

Second, I get a different point of view on my ideas. The person I am talking to will definitely have at least slightly different perspective than mine. Always after a mentorship talk I reshape something in my ideas on the topic that we spoke about – I eliminate some things and throw in others.

Of course, I carefully choose which of the advice to apply in my life, because no two people have the same life path and the fact that some approach worked for my mentor, doesn’t mean it will work for me.

Money should not be your main purpose, but they are freaking important

For better or worse (however you perceive it) we live in a world where you can not survive without having an income (well you may survive as a beggar or living in the mountain growing your own food and looking after animals), but still you will need some cash.

If you want to have a normal lifestyle – eat healthy, travel around the world, have a holiday villa, eat out, have exciting hobbies, you will certainly need a couple of thousand euro per month.

I know that when working on a business we should focus mainly on giving value to the customer. However, I realize that money should be going hand in hand with customer value if I want things to move forward – be able to grow my team, extend my customer reach and market my products more efficiently.

I’ve learned this lesson the hard way hitting the bottom at some point where I have provided great value with my business, but I have had no money to buy a sandwich or a subway ticket, not talking about hiring people and paying bills. All of this, because money was not a priority for me.

You shouldn’t be living for the solely purpose of making money, but money should be one of your priorities.

You can do, be, and achieve anything in this world.

Literally! There is no place where you can’t go, no job that you can’t have, no personal trait that you can’t acquire, and nothing that you can’t achieve.

First you have to figure out what you need to do, what steps you should undertake in order to achieve your goal.

The second step is finding the right resources, people and opportunities.

The third step is to give your best in pursuing this objective, correct yourself throughout your journey and persist until you succeed.

Furthermore, if someone else has achieved something similar, you can do it too! Even better if someone has not – you’re going to be the first one!

No one believed that Elon Musk will create so powerful, fast and beautiful car running solely on electricity, but he did it.

Space, sea, mountains, money, business, relationships, new countries, you name it!

Understand what it takes + find and attract the resources, people and opportunities you need + persist and give your best in pursuing your goal + correct yourself throughout the journey = WIN

I would love to read your personal lessons that you’ve learned in your life. Drop me a comment under this post.

 

Note: What I write in this post, as well as in any other, is a result of my personal experience. I do not claim that any of the stated “lessons” are true or false, neither a fundamental world rules. Just pick whatever (if any) helps you live a better life and apply it to your daily life. I’ll be happy either ways. ; )

P.S. Thank’s Vikivika for the kind editorial support!

Picture credit: Riccardo Palazzani

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