Useful Ideas for Your Life

Couple of agenda items covered today as well as the first musing on this week's theme "Things I Wish I'd Started Sooner." I started keeping a list of people who've impacted my life and specifically how they have impacted my life. Now, when I make a decision or a change in my life that is influenced by what someone has taught me, I can find the person and the lesson they taught me on my list and send a thank you note all in a matter of minutes. I wish I had started this list a long time ago as it makes building and maintaining relationships a lot more reasonable. 

It turns out that hand-feeding someone the advice you know they need is way less useful than asking the right questions to help them realize the very same thing you would have told them. I used to make this mistake with every interaction. I would give out all the advice I knew someone needed, and it was great advice too, but leave them no better off than where I found them. Once you realize that communication is about more than simply stating your ideas clearly, you can change someone's life. 

Mhm, oh yes, yes and I agree, yup. How often do we fall into the rut of agreeing to everything people say even when what they are saying is not something we agree with? Are we doing it in order to quickly get back to "our turn" in the conversation? Are we doing it to avoid confrontation? Whatever the reason may be, the product of that behavior is damaging. Not only do you harm the person in front of you, but you also harm yourself. 

It took me a while to come to terms with the fact that some bridges are best when burned and some burning bridges can't be helped. The most important thing to grasp when burning bridges, both intentionally and accidentally, is that you must learn through it all to make it worthwhile. 

I was so full of sh*t in undergrad that it makes me sick to remember. I owe an apology to every person who gave me their time and had it wasted by my delicate dances of conversational adeptness that lead us nowhere and kept me safe while sterilizing the conversation of anything potentially comprising to myself. I'm sorry I did not know how to be vulnerable. 

I've ruined many romantic relationships with poor communication practices. One of the best ways I've found to improve communication practices is to get used to speaking frequently and with vulnerability when it comes to the ideas in your head. The better you get at this the better your ideas will become as you work through the bad ideas and discover the good ideas in the process. 

When the day is long, when the week is hard, when no one is supportive, when you have to decide if you will stick to the commitment you've made, that is the moment that defines who you are. You get to decide what kind of human you will be. Will you buckle under the pressure? Or will you persevere and decide you are the type of person that pushes through the hard times? 

The secrets to living life well. 

There was a time when I would sleep as long as possible in order to remain unconscious for as long as I could manage. The mere idea of being awake made my stomach churn and left me feeling broken. I spent my hours wishing there was hope. Now, 3-years later, I have carved out space in my life for things I find to be important and I can see now that there was hope all along. I just didn't see it at my lowest. There's hope.

How do you climb a mountain? How do you travel a distance that seems too much to conquer? How do you make a goal in your mind that seems too big to even grasp into reality? One step at a time. That's how. Don't be impeded by the way we exist, rather, see the constraints of our existence as tools that support you in your own journey.