So what if you fail at implementing self-improvement advice? I’ve failed countless times in my fight to get organized and acquire laser-like focus.

So whut if you make a couple of speling errors or typos? It doesn’t change the person that you are and it’s not that big of a deal because people understand you 90% of the time when you make a mistake anyways. And this is coming from a person who’s a total grammar Nazi. Do typos bug me? Yeah. But do they matter, in the grand scheme of things? Not really.

For all the serious stuff we preach — like getting your life into order, figuring out how to live “well”, cultivating good habits — we hardly ever take a step back and laugh at ourselves, at the absurdity that we feel like we need to absorb all these self-improvement concepts in order to live a good life.

You don’t, guys. Life isn’t that serious. It’s a tragicomedy, and you should be laughing at it often.

Taking Yourself Too Seriously

Everyone takes themselves and their personal drama way, way too seriously sometimes.

So what if someone insulted you? So what if your girlfriend broke up with you? So what if you’ve tried so hard to accomplish something, but when it counted, you failed?

They all don’t matter. Have a short memory, laugh at your emotions (as best you can; I’m the first person who’ll tell you that some things take time to heal), and move on.

Think about all the petty stuff you pour your energy into every day. Things like gossip. Arguments. Getting angry at the asshole that just cut you off on the highway. All of those things make you generate negative energy for a reason that you’ll probably forget about a week from now. In short: they don’t matter. If they don’t matter, why do you care so much about them? Learn to let go and to take this life a little bit less seriously.

Yes, I know that this may be the only chance we have at living, and that makes this life really, really serious business, but… Given the choice, wouldn’t you rather laugh at the absurdity of a situation rather than get angry about it?

Quick anecdote: a couple of weeks ago, my best friend and I got into a fight. Well, we didn’t really get into a fight, but I was pretty upset at her because of things that transpired over somebody’s blog. I didn’t approve of her actions and was so disgusted with what happened with regard to that blog that I thought of ending the relationship. Just turning my back on her, forever, because she participated in something that really, really irked me.

We’re still best friends. When we were talking about the situation, she said something along the lines of – “Listen, Brett. This argument over this person’s blog is stupid. It’s so stupid and unimportant. But our relationship — that’s what’s important. How can we let something petty like that destroy what’s truly important in our lives?”

I realized, then, that I was taking myself way too seriously, and had let my sense of self-righteousness get in the way of preserving something that was (and is) truly dear to me.

Life As A Comedy of Errors

After letting go of the idea that life is incredibly serious (because it’s not unless you make it that way), how can we view the negative things in our lives?

As a comedy of errors. The idea is that, when things go wrong, it’s inherently humorous (especially when the people committing the errors take themselves way too seriously, thus making the irony even greater). We’re humans, and we, in our arrogance, think we can transcend our nature and become perfect.

Wrong. We make errors all the time, guys. And when we do, we shouldn’t berate ourselves over it, like this — “Goddamnit Brett! You burnt the burgers again!”

Instead, just be cool with it. Laugh it off, realize that, while dinner may be ruined for one night, it’s not a big deal. It’s not going to effect me for the rest of my life. At worst, if I failed in particularly bad fashion, then I’ll have a nice humiliating story to tell about myself for posterity.

Either way, I win.

Caveats

Even though I’m telling you not to take life too seriously, it isn’t the same as telling you not to take life seriously at all.

There are some things in life that should be taken seriously, like your values, relationships, and work. Those deserve all your energy and dedication, and you should focus on them because they’re what matters in life. If things go wrong there, the comedy of errors theory works — to a point. Obviously, if you get laid off from your job or your significant other rejects your proposal, you’re not going to be smiling and saying to yourself, “Oh, what a comedy of errors life is!”

You’re going to be hurt. And that’s okay, because, in order to experience life to the fullest, we have to experience a full range of emotions.

The idea that we shouldn’t take life too seriously only applies to the mundane things that bother us. Short-term failures and things out of our control are what deserve to be laughed at; we need to relax more and stop going into crisis mode when anything goes wrong.

This also means that all the other advice I’ve given you — most of which, if you’ll recall, is pretty serious — still applies. That is, if you think improving yourself and living a better life is important, then you can’t just laugh at it all the time. You’ll need to be serious and disciplined in order to form positive habits.

When you screw up, sure, you can laugh at yourself. On one condition: that you try again.

However, I’ve achieved a fair amount of success. And I know that, in order to be successful, consistently doing the right thing is the key. I’m consistent in my study habits. I’m consistent in how I work out. I’m consistent in how I do my work (an hour and a half of work, followed by a 15 minute break). I’m consistent in how I do just about everything – and, yet, somehow, I haven’t become consistent in my work on this site, even though I’ve been “working on it” for a long time.

Sidenote: even though I know what the right thing to do is, oftentimes, I don’t do it. That’s how hard implementing ANY advice is. So if you’re struggling with implementing self-improvement advice, don’t worry. You’re not alone.

You can’t take days off from practice. You can’t use excuses to get you out of putting the time in that’s necessary to become great.

If you want to be great at anything, everyone knows you have to practice a lot. The best way to guarantee that you practice the number of hours it takes to become great? You make it a habit. Forming great habits is the key to consistency.

A Parable

Jeff and Jack are best friends, and aspire to be master poetry writers. For some reason, poetry calls to both of them – or so they think.

Jeff loves the craft of poetry. He views it as something he does for fun. He knows that more practice will make him into a great poet, but he doesn’t want poetry writing to turn into a chore. He wants to keep it fun and doesn’t want to turn it into something he hates. So, when he feels like it, he writes poetry. Other times, when he feels like it, he reads poetry. Sometimes these reading and writing sessions last all day. Other times, they last 15 minutes. It all depends on how Jeff feels. If he feels particularly frustrated, he’ll give up on poetry for the day and go watch TV. If he’s not having fun, he figures, why bother practicing?

Jack knows that, in order to become the best poet possible, he needs to write and read a lot of it. He sets aside a couple of hours every evening, after his homework is done, to write and read poetry. For the first hour, he writes, and for the second hour, he reads. He does this like clockwork, every single day, whether he feels like it or not. On some days, when Jack really doesn’t want to write, he writes poems about how much he doesn’t want to write. When he has writer’s block, he doesn’t get up and do something else, he just sits there, pen in hand, waiting for something to get on the page. Even when the reading becomes tedious, he continues to read because he knows there’s something to learn from every poem he reads. Jack knows that the only way to improve his skills is to continue practicing — especially during the times that he feels like giving up.

3 years pass.

Who ends up being the better poet?

Who ends up extracting more enjoyment out of poetry in the long run?

Hint: the two answers are the same.

Where has all the passion gone, man?

Where did it go?

Odds are – it hasn’t gone anywhere. You just choose not to feel it, because you’re scared.

Scared? Yep. You’re scared. You’re scared of showing your passion to the outside world, scared to show that you’re passionate about anything, because you’re too “cool” and “understated” and “minimal” and “stoic” to show how passionate you are about things. Things like this blog, self-development, your health, living a good life, giving yourself the tools to build a business in the future, and, yes – just having fun.

Why are you scared? Because no one else around you (in real life) is clearly passionate and you’re afraid of attracting attention?

You need to show your passion precisely because no one else will. It’s an act of defying the status quo – and one of inspiration. Maybe everyone else is waiting for someone else to show their passion and fire, so then they’ll be able to be comfortable to be passionate too. Be that first person.

Passion Is A Choice

One of my favorite sections of the book Linchpin by Seth Godin is his take on passion:

Does your job match your passion?

Or does your passion match your job?

Conventional wisdom is that you should find a job that matches your passion. I think this is backwards.

I’ve argued repeatedly that your product should match your marketing, not the other way around, and the same inversion is true here. Transferring your passion to your job is far easier than finding a job that happens to match your passion.

The argument: we all have some stores of “passion” inside us, just waiting to be expressed. Waiting around for the right job/environment/network/whatever other excuse you can find to show up so you can express your passion is straight-up bogus. All that means is that you’re waiting for someone else’s permission to be passionate – and I don’t know about you guys, but I hate waiting around for other people.

I’m sick of waiting to produce my best work and to shine like I know I can. I’m sick of going through my days feeling apathetic and uninspired – all the inspiration I can possibly need is inside me. I have the passion, the desire to do great work everywhere I go, no matter what my “job” is. I want to serve as that inspiring firebrand who brings excitement everywhere he goes – so I can inspire others who are just waiting to unleash their passion to do the same.

All of the excuses, from now on, won’t fly. They can’t have any effect on me, now that I’ve realized that my passion should not be limited any more by where I am (I hold back a lot since I’m not in college yet, where things really matter). If I can use my passion for doing great work to help people now – why should I bother waiting? Because they’re not “worthy”? Of course they’re worthy of your passion! Never underestimate the power of the butterfly effect.

Here’s your mission, should you choose to accept it: feel excited at the prospect of living and doing the things that you do. Look in wonder at everything that you’re doing, and think of all the possibilities.

Example: I’m writing this blog post. Odds are, when I post this up, a few people (around 10 or so) are going to feel moved enough to comment on it. Dozens more will read it and think, “Wow, that’s a great post. I want to start bringing passion into my life now.” And there’s probably going to be one person who feels totally enlightened by reading this post – they’re going to become a passionate firebrand who starts getting excited over everything. This post will be a life-changer for them – all because I brought my passion in this post.

That’s… really cool.

And just think – those same things could happen every single time I act on my passion, no matter what it is or where I do it.

That’s incredibly inspiring and exciting.

When you wake up in the morning, are you ever even close to 100% of exactly what is going to happen in your day? Probably not – and if you are, then you should read on.

Life is incredibly dynamic – so dynamic, so unpredictable, that we can never know exactly what’s going to happen in a given day before it happens. Sure, we have schedules that dictate when and where we’ll be for large parts of our days, but our schedules don’t tell us what will actually happen while we’re at our doctor’s appointment, having coffee with a friend, or sitting at home alone. Maybe your doctor will tell you that you have a debilitating disease, maybe your friend will tell you that they are thinking of starting a business based on a really cool idea and they want you to help, and maybe you’ll come up with a really cool idea of your own while you’re watching the football game on TV.

When you wake up in the morning, you have no idea of what will actually happen. You don’t know the potential that your day holds.

I’m telling you that, much as we have tons of potential as human beings, your days have infinite potential. Anything can happen on any given day. Anything. You just have to be open to the possibilities.

You might meet your future wife or husband today on the bus or at a bookstore (though that bookstore won’t be Borders since they’re bankrupt). You might find the inspiration to quit your job and build a business of your own around your talent/passion. You might have a conversation with a friend that changes your life forever. You just don’t know.

We Naturally Limit Chance

Why don’t more of these cool things happen in our lives?

Simple. You’ve spent your whole life avoiding randomness and the force of serendipity because, well… You’re scared of it. You’re scared of chaos because it cannot be controlled.

You schedule your entire day to make sure nothing bad happens, by chance – like you losing focus or not getting much done. However, what if, by letting yourself roam free a little bit, you create conditions for something completely awesome (but random) to happen?

We shy away from taking risks because we’re afraid of unintended consequences. But what if those unintended consequences are good? What if, by talking to that cute guy/girl you’re in front of in line at Barnes and Noble, you hit it off really well? What if your crazy business idea actually does well instead of failing like you think it will?

We can speculate about what will happen all we want – but the only way to know is to take the risk, to put ourselves out there, and to make serendipity either reward us or punish us. However, I’m a believer that fortune favors the bold, and that, if you take risks, large or small, you will be rewarded handsomely in the long run.

Why? Most people spend their lives limiting chance because it creates more stress to deal with risk instead of security. However, if you take risks and let the chips fall where they may, you’ll be a winner no matter what because you’ll have a richer life experience than the person who sits inside all day, munching on Cheetos and watching TV.

Maximizing Chance

Since we naturally limit risk and chance in our lives, there must be a way to take calculated risks in order to help us reap the rewards of serendipity… It only makes sense for us to maximize the randomness of our days, because that’s what makes things special – the unexpected is scarce, and the scarce is the spectacular in our lives.

Luckily, I have a few solutions:

1. Strike up conversations with everyone. Talking to people – no matter where you are – will bring you down new, unpredictable avenues. I’ve had many conversations that were totally random that have ended up changing my life in a big way. Conversation allows for a flow of ideas – ideas that may change your life (or theirs) for the better. Not to mention that you may end up building relationships with total strangers that you end up talking to at random, just because you were in the right place at the right time.

2. Help people. Whenever you can, however you can, help people out. Do it for free and without the expectation of reciprocation, and see what unexpected rewards fall in your lap. At the very least, you’ll feel good about yourself for doing a good deed – that’s enough of a reward, isn’t it?

3. Do the unexpected. I know this is obvious, but it isn’t so obvious in practice. This means: change up your morning routine just once to see how it feels. Go home from work by a different route. Drink a different type of coffee. Talk to friends you haven’t talked to in months. Go out to new places. Approach your work in a different way. Just do things differently and see what effects they have on your life. If you don’t like them, switch it up again… The bottom line here is to keep things fresh, you’re going to have to change it up every once in a while. When things get boring or tedious, that’s when you have to introduce some change.

Break Free

Wherever you go, wherever you are, remember this always – anything can happen. Anything. The more you realize this, the more you’ll open yourself up to the possibilities that lie in every moment.

And, once you see the possibilities, you’ll begin to make them real… You’ll begin to see just how wonderful chance can be, and how a life of security is nothing compared to a life with a little bit of risk.

The world felt like a hostile, dark place. I felt like I didn’t deserve success, I felt like I was being stretched thin since my energy is being spent in so many different ways, and I felt like there was no way out of the darkness and sadness that I felt for myself and the world.

The breakdown started when I couldn’t bring myself to do any work. I was paralyzed by anxiety. Did I try to fight it and push through? No. I’ve learned the signs of an impending breakdown over the years, and I’ve also learned that the best approach is not to fight the breakdown, but to welcome it with open arms and be swallowed whole by it. Resisting does no good. Only by embracing all emotions can we feel their impermanence and let them go.

I’m sure you all are thinking – “As a personal development junkie/blogger, you still have emotional breakdowns? How is that possible, given that you’re supposed to be excellent at managing your life and your emotions?”

Yes, I have breakdowns, and I’m sure everyone else who blogs about it does as well. Just because we talk about how to reach ideals doesn’t mean we’re experiencing those ideals all the time. In fact, since we (or at least I) preach about the value of experiencing a full range of emotions, I’d say that it’s healthy for us to experience negative emotions, and even have a severe outburst like the one I had.

Lessons Learned From the Brink of Disaster

1. Your emotional state dictates your “level” or “tier” of thinking.

After I had my breakdown, I went and played one of the best hockey games I’ve played in a long time. Why? After my breakdown, I let go of all the expectations I had for myself – I let myself “start over” in every project I had – and I simply played my game. The result? Great. We won against one of the best teams in our league. Before I left for my game, I hated playing hockey, as I really stopped having fun playing it. During our game and after the win, I realized I had fun, because I had let go of all the expectations I placed on myself.

Similarly, before I left, during my breakdown, I saw everything in a negative light. I was worried about my college acceptances, I was worried that none of the work I was doing (including work on this site) actually mattered, and I was sick of everything. I honestly wanted to curl up into a ball on my bed and vegetate for the rest of my life.

However, after the win, I felt elated, and everything reverted back to the positive light that I was used to seeing the world in. I was proud of my work on this site, I realized I had fun doing the things I was doing, and life felt good again.

The difference? Our emotional states dictate on what “level” we think at. When we’re feeling negative emotionally, we only look at the bad things in our lives. We make mountains out of molehills and exaggerate the problems that we have. When we’re feeling positive, we breeze over our problems, and consider them non-issues. We look at things positively and enjoy things for what they are.

When you’re in a negative state, as I was, it’s impossible to reason with you. I read over some of my posts on staying positive and the things I wrote felt like lies. Everything I wrote about staying positive and walking through the world with a sense of ease and confidence seemed like bullshit to me. All of my favorite inspirational quotes – and even my personal recenterer – couldn’t cure me. They didn’t even make sense to me. Does that mean that the things I wrote aren’t true? No. I still stand by them, but it’s impossible to reason with a mind that wants to wallow in sadness and negative emotion.

2. Don’t dig up the good seeds you’ve already planted; wait to regain your composure before you make any major changes to your life.

Following from lesson #1, take care to maintain a little bit of perspective and do not take any major action when you’re in a state of total emotional turmoil. Your emotions will kill your ability to make rational decisions. If you let yourself make any major decisions that could change the course of your life, you will make decisions you will come to regret. While I don’t have a personal story of my own where this has happened, I’m telling you that, when you’re feeling your worst, you’re going to want to sabotage yourself and ruin everything you’ve worked hard for.

Don’t let yourself do that. Don’t dig up the good seeds you’ve planted and wait for your emotions to pass before taking any action. Coolheadedness always prevails.

3. Your energy is finite. We need to spend time just “being”.

Lately, I’ve been bogged down, and haven’t had much time to create – which has killed my mood. It’s tough to find time to create or do anything else besides going to school or hockey, since they, on an average weekday, take up a mind-boggling 11 hours of my waking time, minimum. Take away a couple of hours for morning and nightly rituals, and I only have about 3 hours of free time a day, which is usually consumed by homework or reading.

That means I don’t have much time to create (I operate best when I have long blocks to let my mind meander and find the best solutions to problems) or read blogs or participate on social media – stuff that I enjoy doing, but not when I’m under pressure to do so. Scheduling those things in on a calendar-based system has made me more productive, but it’s also made me much more stressed out since I’m switching tasks so often.

I’m starting to figure out a couple of things – 1) “Specializing” on a certain project for an entire day is probably better than switching projects on-the-fly all the time (for me and my sanity, at least), and 2) I need to schedule in large blocks of downtime for me to recharge and just be me. Just being me should, ideally, involve me, a cup of tea, The Art of Looking Sideways or Linchpin or Meditations or Borges’s Collected Fictions, a pen, and a nice, Moleskine notebook.

Note: notice how I’m going to be consuming very little when I choose to “just be”. I’m going to unplug from everything, except from those books, because they are consistent providers of value to me. I’ll do my best to prevent constant consumption during “being” time, even though I already take about 20 minutes to meditate every day. Still, I feel like meditation isn’t good enough on its own to preserve my sanity. A period of time where I can drift off and create (writing in a notebook) sounds like something I need badly.

4. Do not hide from your emotions. You can’t – we all need to release emotions sometime.

Like I said before, it’s impossible to hide from your emotions, and if you feel a huge swell coming up, don’t resist it. Let it out, unless your emotions are going to make you do something that you’ll regret later. Ideally, you want to experience a breakdown alone or with someone you trust… And when you get to your breaking point, do not resist anything. Let it all out.

If you resist it, you’ll keep building up the emotional burden to be unleashed some other time… When it could be messy. Don’t wait for that time and release whenever you feel the buildup of negative emotion starting to weigh you down.

My symptoms for an impending breakdown? Lack of creativity, massive resistance to starting anything (procrastination), heightened anxiety, repetitive negative thought loops, and lack of motivation/inspiration. Your mileage may vary, but it’s important to keep those things in mind.

Closing

If you feel yourself moving along the path to an emotional breakdown – or are even going through a really rough time where your world seems to be turned upside down – do not reist it. You need to release the built-up negativity that’s inside of you – if you don’t, it’s going to come back to bite you.

No one wants to feel bad – nevermind feeling like the world is going to collapse on them (how I feel when I experience near-breakdowns) – but it is, in my opinion, a necessary evil.

The key to letting yourself experience these is to limit the damage they cause you. Cease all decision-making. “Zoom out” a bit, gain some perspective, and realize that the negative thoughts you’re having aren’t true, no matter how true they appear. Know that you’re just trapped in a lower level of thinking and that you have to release your emotions in order to allow your mind to think on a higher level.

Let yourself open up. To be vulnerable is to be strong.

Pull yourself through the breakdown, because even if your mind can’t see it, there is a better place for you waiting on the other side.

Why? I believe in becoming a complete human being. One that has strengths in every area, and weaknesses in as few as possible.

Becoming a complete human is the end of all self-improvement. It is the goal that we are always striving for – to become a balanced, good person across every aspect of our lives. A true jack-of-all-trades or the archetypal Renaissance man is what I’ve tried to become – and I think everyone in the self-improvement game will trend towards becoming one themselves. It’s part of the natural process.

Becoming a complete human being requires being very good in every ‘sphere’ of life – it requires having integrity and being an honest person; having diverse knowledge of a wide range of subjects; being in excellent shape; having solid relationships with yourself, family, and friends; having a career that you enjoy; having hobbies and skills that you practice regularly and are competent at; and being able to maintain a life of balance.

I don’t think that there can be anything more rewarding than becoming a complete human being. Being the total package allows you to have the broadest experience of life possible – something I think is very valuable. Being complete also makes you a very strong, competent individual – being so good in every part of your life will prevent a total breakdown should something go wrong in one part of your life. In essence, your mental well-being is not predicated upon just one ‘sphere’ of your life – rather, it is broken up into every part of your life, leading to flexibility and mental fortitude.

Let’s break all the different spheres of living down, one by one.

Having Integrity

Having integrity, as I’ve said before, is the foundation of living a good life.

Building integrity is like building trust: it takes a long time to make, and a very short time to lose.

It requires total honesty in action – doing what you truly want to do – and a belief in yourself that transcends the opinions of any other person.

How to build integrity, you ask? Just act on what you believe in, over and over again, every day. Give yourself credit for your effort, rather than the results of your effort. Your effort is under your control, the results are not.

Be gentle with yourself, but give yourself a kick in the pants when you know you’re not following your values. Be a kind master over yourself – how you talk to (and perceive) yourself will ultimately be reflected in your actions.

If you do the right thing, over and over again – being true to yourself, not caring what people think, not being torn by emotion – you will see your self-trust and personal integrity rise. It takes the cumulative effect of days’ and days’ worth of effort, but the kind of internal satisfaction you get from being a person of integrity and honesty is simply unparalleled.

Cultivating a Knowledge Base

It’s not my intention for people to read this post and say to themselves, “Alright, I have to have diverse knowledge of a wide range of subjects. So… Uh… I guess I’m gonna go read like 10 random articles from Wikipedia per day, so I know lots of stuff! Yeah!”

Uh… No.

A true Renaissance Man would not acquire knowledge just for the sake of it – they would be propelled by their own curiosity and interest in the subjects that they’d study.

Let’s face it: you’re never going to know everything. So stick to the subjects that you’re genuinely interested in – something that you’re naturally curious about.

For me, I’m a history, psychology, business, tech and sports geek, so I read a lot on those subjects. I love all of them for different reasons – for example, I love finding out why people do what they do, so psychology is a natural fit for me. But I also like seeing how different courses of action can, over the course of years and decades, change society, so I like history (and especially biographies of historical figures). The list goes on and on.

So, what’s the best route to develop a wide base of knowledge? Ask yourself – what would I like to know more about? Write down the various subjects on a piece of paper. After that, go on Amazon and buy some of the top-rated books on that subject. You don’t have to buy academic texts or anything like that – something that’s popular will usually give you a good enough introduction of the subject, and you can decide from there whether you’d like to learn even more about it.

That’s when you can check out blogs (there are blogs on everything out there), forums, other books, and so on, continually learning more and more.

This is organic, natural learning, driven by curiosity rather than external compulsion.

Don’t learn more because I told you to. Learn more because you want to.

Handling Health

Health is way too complex for me to break down, so I’ll give you a few tips to get you started:

1. Buy organic. I’m not going to tell you to eat raw, but eating organic food more often has definitely improved my health, and others’ as well. The less preservatives and pesticides that you ingest, the better. Trust me.

2. Exercise often – or, better yet, play a sport. You don’t want to be worrying about hypertension, blood clots, and heart disease when you get older, do you? Staying in good cardiovascular shape will make your heart stronger, keep your arteries free of plaques, and lower your blood pressure. Oh, and exercise releases endorphins, which make you feel happy.

3. Drink nothing but water. Feel free to indulge in something else from time to time, but the main liquid that you should be putting in your body is water. I routinely drink upwards of 6 liters per day – your mileage may vary. You weren’t made to be drinking fruit juice, soda, and all that other junk. Your body needs water.

4. Get enough sleep. You can play around with polyphasic sleeping if you want (I am doing a bi-phasic schedule right now), but the bottom line is this: get enough so you can feel your best from the time you wake up ’til the time you go to bed.

5. Eat “good” fats. Avoid fast food and overly fatty foods (but meat’s fine). Incorporating good fats from things like olive oil and nuts (especially from almonds and walnuts) help stabilize blood sugar levels, allowing you to have a more consistent energy level throughout the day. Also, nuts make for a great healthy snack that keep hunger away for hours. As a caveat: make sure you eat them raw – you don’t want all the salt from the salted nuts. You can buy raw nuts in bulk at your grocery store for much lower prices, so everyone wins there.

6. Supplement intelligently. Avoid destructive supplements (I’m looking at you, creatine – and yes, I’m aware it’s safe when done right) while supplementing with things that help you. I’m a big proponent of vitamin B complexes for increasing focus and improving brain function, as well as a good antioxidant supplement that includes vitamins A, C, and E, as well as selenium. However – don’t buy these based on my recommendation. Check with your doctor first.

This barely scratches the surface, but I recommend picking up Tim Ferriss’s book The Four Hour Body for other quick tips that can change your health – and your life. There’s something in there for everyone.

Creating Good Relationships

As far as treating yourself goes – never say anything to yourself that you would never tolerate from someone else. Be kind to yourself, as I stated in the section on integrity. This simple rule will make your relationship with yourself much, much better.

When it comes to building relationships with others, here are a few simple rules:

1. Your input = your output: If you put little to no effort or energy into developing the relationship, you won’t be able to develop a strong relationship. If you talk with people often, do things with them, and just have fun in their presence, the relationship will grow in strength over time. Don’t expect to talk to someone once or twice and expect them to think of you as a great friend – great relationships take time to develop.

2. Be a great listener: If you’re good at listening to others, you’ll become much better at relating to them, which means that you’ll have a stronger relationship faster. Being a great listener also helps you build trust, which is my next point…

3. Be trustworthy: If you can be the type of person that’s like a Swiss Bank account (virtually impenetrable) for your friends’ secrets, then your friends will sense this and will trust you so much more as a result. I’ve been burned on this before over things I didn’t know were secrets, so if your friend is telling you anything sensitive, I urge you to ask them whether the things they’ve told you should considered confidential. It’ll save your relationships. Trust takes a long time to build up and a long time to lose.

4. Find the good in others – and put a spotlight on it: If you become good at finding out the best attributes of others’ personalities and making them show it, you will become a social dynamo. It’s difficult to do, but if you master the art of reading people and truly understanding their personalities, you will make them feel very good and at ease around you. Listening to your friends allows you to do this – if you know Jesse makes killer deadpan jokes, set him up for some by including threads he can use in your conversation. If you know Clara is quiet normally, but becomes really outspoken and excited whenever discussion revolves around music, make an effort to talk about music when you’re out with her. It’s all about listening to the emotions running under people’s words, and if you can make them feel good around you, they’ll love you for it. Of course – don’t do this in a manipulative way, but do it because you want to see them happy. However…

5. Make your needs clear: If you don’t make your needs clear in the relationship, then you’re bound to be let down. People will take whatever you’re giving them without giving much in return sometimes, and only you have the power to call them out on it and say that they need to invest some more effort into your relationship. If they refuse, then you’ll realize that they weren’t really a good friend to begin with.

Having a Career You Enjoy

I don’t have many tips here, as I don’t really have much of a career to speak of and it’d be wrong of me to suggest anything that has never worked for me.

However, there are a few things that I believe:

• Life is too short to have a job you hate;
• You should be doing work that you find personally fulfilling;
• You can “do” more than one thing and switch careers, no matter how old you are;
• “Job security” is a sham and risk is everywhere, no matter what industry you’re in;
• Entrepreneurship is a great route for those who are very independent, driven, and have a creative vision that they need to fulfill;
• There are plenty of ways to make money – even on the side.

Overall, I’m a little out of my depth here, but there are a few blogs I can recommend for finding your passion, making money, and keeping more of it: Ramit Sethi at I Will Teach You To Be Rich, Neil Patel at Quick Sprout, Pam Slim from Escape From Cubicle Nation, and Dave Garland of The Rise to the Top are all fantastic resources.

Hobbies and Skills

This is probably the easiest section for people to get handled.

I think that having a ‘craft’ from outside of your work that you can get better at over time and practice as a way to relax (and develop mastery) is necessary. Having at least one of those things on top of your other obligations as an aspiring Renaissance Man is incredibly useful – you get to track your progress over time, which is immensely rewarding, and it serves as a constructive break from the rest of the world.

Even picking up a new hobby from scratch, with no prior experience, is something that can transform your life for the better. Don’t be afraid of being bad when you start – everyone is. Instead, embrace the opportunity to learn and to make yourself into a master at whatever you decide you’re going to do.

Need a hobby? How about: martial arts, photography, painting, drawing, any sport, mountain biking, hiking, rock climbing, logic puzzles (Sudoku/Kakuro), watching movies, writing, any musical instrument, (break)dancing, skiing/snowboarding, gardening, cooking, building stuff (whatever you can think of!), woodworking, sailing, singing, knitting, sewing, and magic tricks? Pick one. Or you can always google something like ‘hobbies’ and find something that meets your desire.

Maintaining Balance

The really difficult part about becoming a complete human is living a life of balance – making sure all the components of being that complete person can coexist in your life.

I’ll admit: I’m not a very balanced person by nature. I like diving into things headfirst and immersing myself in projects for long periods of time, then becoming more extroverted and being social while I ‘recharge’, then going back to work.

The key that I’m finding is creating habits that reinforce your Renaissance Man “training” is the easiest way to maintain a life of balance.

That is, you have to “schedule” your time to develop your relationships, the time that you’re going to develop your knowledge base, and so on.

If you make inviolable times during your week to do these things, over time, balance will become a habit.

Since this is a little abstract, here’s an example: let’s say that, every day, work effectively takes up my free time until 6 pm, and my “real” free time falls from 6:30 to 10:30 P.M.

Every Monday and Wednesday night, I’m going to devote 3 of those 4 hours to learning and one hour doing whatever I want to do.

Every Thursday night and Friday evening, I’m going to devote my time to my skills and hobbies.

Every Friday night and Saturday afternoon/evening, I’m going to go out with my friends, and I’ll chat with them as part of my free time during the week.

Every Sunday, I’m going to do whatever I want to do, for the entire day. The only rule is I can’t think about work, and I have to be doing something I enjoy.

All the while, I’m going to be eating well and getting my sleep.

To stay in shape, I’m going to go on runs every Monday and Friday morning, while I hit the gym on Tuesday and Thursday nights.

If you hold up this schedule for about a month, it’ll become a habit, and you’ll have no problem whatsoever maintaining your balance. The key is to let yourself break your own rules a little bit, but not so much that you throw your life out of balance for anything short of an emergency.

However – sometimes, balance isn’t necessary and can actually harm you. For reasons why imbalance might actually be the answer, check out this post from Jonathan Mead.

Action Steps

They’re everywhere in this post – close your eyes, scroll up, stop, and open your eyes. Look! Action steps!

What do you think about becoming a “complete human”? Is it a flight of fancy? Or something we all should aspire to be? Is becoming a jack-of-all-trades viable in an economy where specialists are becoming more and more important?

This isn’t one of them. This is a post made purely to help you – because I know of the things that you might be going through right now, or might be going through in the future.

This isn’t a post that I want to go viral (actually, I never really care if my posts do go viral), nor do I care if a billion people on the internet read it and link back to me.

My goal? To help one person out. That’s it.

Growing Hurts. A Lot.

If you frequent here and some other awesome blogs on improving yourself, being radical, and living a truly remarkable and awesome life – my personal favorites are by Ashley, Tyler, Chris, Colin, and Diggy – you’ll hear about how awesome it is to break free from the system, become self-sufficient, have awesome adventures, and truly live the life that you want to live.

While that’s true to an extent, there’s one thing that gets lost in the shuffle:

Making changes – especially ones of the magnitude that you want to make – is very, very painful.

They don’t tell you that when they tell you how glamorous it is to quit your job, rebuild your identity, and travel around the planet (if you’re into that sort of thing).

Just the sheer act of stopping your reliance on others to feel good and to truly take your life into your own hands is very radical, and can cause a lot of pain. Why?

Before, if you didn’t stand out much, you will now. And standing out – as per the Tall Poppy Syndrome – will cause a lot of criticism to come your way. Your new way of living will be under assault from people – especially the people who you are closest to, since your new choice to live life in a new way will impact them the most. You’ll be different – which will make them feel uncomfortable.

I know what this is like. The problem is, you might be left with no choice but to cut those people out of your life and replace them. In this way, the self-improvement journey can be incredibly lonely. I know it has for me – in fact, it was borne out of loneliness. Odds are, if I hadn’t hit rock bottom and lost a few friends, I wouldn’t be where I am today.

You will end up feeling like there are two sides of yourself – the “good side” and the “bad side”. Actually, it will be more of a war between the “old you” and the “new you”, and you don’t know which side to trust. You’ll feel like you have a split personality with crazy mood swings, and your good days and bad days will be unpredictable.

When you’re facing your fears on a daily basis and truly making radical changes, this is what life can be like. You lose friends, you lose connections, you start to wonder if anything really matters anymore, or if what you’re doing is even right. You begin to doubt that the struggle is worth it, and why you can’t go back to how you felt before.

What’s worse is that, oftentimes, things seem to fall apart in your life – things that used to be constant. Things that you used to be sure of… Well, you aren’t so sure of them anymore. Overall, life becomes one giant question mark, and, for many people, the uncertainty can be extremely painful and stressful.

A Plea

Even though life can be difficult when you’re going through this stage, whatever you do – do not give up.

The uncertainty and the anxiety do not last forever. In fact, you should relish experiencing them.

Why?

Because that period when you’re not feeling at your best, when your world seems upside down, is when you’re experiencing the most growth. Putting yourself through the fire, day in, day out, will make you stronger in ways that you could never imagine.

If you’re feeling like this now – great! No, seriously. You’re on the right track. Keep doing what you’re doing, because you’re moving to a much better place. This phase of anxiety, insecurity, and strife is only a transition on your way to a better life. Trust me.

Better yet, trust yourself. You can make it, as long as you keep taking action to expose your fears and make yourself feel more alive every single day. As long as you keep moving, you’ll be alright.

You’ll make mistakes along the way. Those are cool too. Don’t let them effect you and realize that everything that happens to you is just part of the process.

I know what this feels like. You probably won’t believe me now (and I didn’t believe the people who told me I’d be okay either), but you’re going to be okay at the end of this, and the story of your transformation (everyone has one) will be one that you can tell your kids. Just don’t let it define you when you’re on the other side of the chasm.

Above all, though, work your hardest to make your dreams come true. Because, honestly, the life that you want, if you’re reading this post right now, is within your reach. Dreaming is great. Chasing your dreams and taking action is even better.

Even if you’re stuck in that painful transition stage right now, keep moving and keep doing work to forge the life that you want and deserve.

Because, truly, if you weather the storm now, you’ll reap the rewards later.

If I helped you with this post, let me know in the comments! If there’s any other way I can help you just ask or contact me at my email – BrettPluginID at gmail.com.

For the uninitiated, the butterfly effect is essentially this: decisions or actions we take now, no matter how small they are, can play a massive role in determining the outcome of our lives and the lives of others. We have no idea what our impact can have on others – just taking actions may start a personal revolution for some people. You can do the same – and affect more than just yourself.

This is why Gandhi’s famous quote “Be the change you want to see in the world,” is so effective. It shows how one decision to change our personal world can end up inspiring others to do the same. That’s why I’m writing for you today. This is a call to action.

You have a tremendous amount of influence, whether you like it or not (unless you live under a rock, of course). It’s about time you used it to change the world.

You don’t have to be an A-list blogger to cultivate and use your influence for the better. Sure, it helps if you have thousands of twitter followers and a blog with 40 billion RSS subscribers, but, really – you don’t need any of that. The people who tell you that you need that kind of social media power have been selling you something all along. Don’t listen to them.

That also means that you can no longer use your lack of blogging fame, low twitter follower count, your debts, your lack of “intelligence” (whatever that means), your lack of ambition, your job that you hate, your job that you like, your dog eating your homework, your lack of money, your lack of a “perfect” life, your lack of a significant other, your health, your coworkers, or anything else you can think of as an excuse. There are no excuses anymore.

You must take responsbility.

You must have courage.

How to Change the World

On any given day, you interact with a lot of people. Where does the butterfly effect come in? Make your interactions with other people so positive that you change their lives for the better, so they can then have positive interactions which help change someone else, and so on, ad infinitum, until all of humanity has benefited from your simple decision. That’s the butterfly effect at its best. And it all revolves around small decisions that you make every day. Simple acts of kindness, no matter how cliche it sounds, can change the world.

But this goes beyond kindness.

This is about presenting yourself as you are all the time, without shame or restraint. This is about going out of your way to make people’s days better with the gift of a smile or with the gift of an idea. This is about refusing to bow down to the status quo, and, instead, insisting on being yourself, all the time. By being so unabashedly you, you’ll inspire others to be as authentic as you are. Lead others by example – you can’t simply proclaim the superiority of your ideas of kindess and nonconformity – you must live them.

You must show them every day how to live a better life. This is why Gandhi said to “be the change…” The emphasis was on being – being a leader, a pioneer.

And if you inspire them to do good and be themselves, they’ll inspire others. And those others will inspire others still. And the cycle goes on forever…

But it all starts with you.

It’s All in Your Hands

You are the sum of your decisions.

Will you decide to start the cycle through your network to change humanity?

Will you dedicate yourself to doing work that matters, instead of thinking of work as a job?

Will you make it your mission to smile every day and spread positive emotions?

Will you do the right thing, even if no one else will?

Will you commit yourself to learning every day?

Will you make the choice to make things happen, instead of talking about it?

Will you make the choice to never sell yourself for anything and to never compromise yourself for anything or anyone?

Will you be the change you want to see in the world?

It’s all in your hands. Go make things happen. Go spread kindness. Go make your dreams come true. Never stop until you get there, my friends, and start the cycle of positive change in every one you know. Don’t tell them about it – live it. Draw on the depths of your soul to make it happen, because it requires nothing less than that.

If you’re committing yourself to change the world, let me know how you’re going to do it in a comment. Maybe we can help each other!

Most advice is given based on people’s past experiences with things and is based on a ton of assumptions – assumptions that are often not true. In fact, most people, when giving advice, make one fatal error: they believe that they are exactly like you. All their advice is based on what they would do if they were in your shoes – but not if they actually were you, if that makes any sense.

Beware of Bias

For this reason, people will naturally make mistakes in advising you. They will try and point you in a direction that they would like to see you going, not based on where you would like to see you go. This is a clever form of manipulation; if you listen to them for too long, you may end up living someone else’s dream instead of your own. There are some people out there who get a kick out of living vicariously through other people’s accomplishments, and you should be aware of that.

Now, the point of this post isn’t to convince you that you should be paranoid whenever anyone gives you advice because they have an agenda – often times, they don’t. Really. The vast majority of the people who will give you advice have great intentions and will want nothing but the best for you – but that “best” may be the “best” in their minds, while you like something totally different. It’s just one of our inherent biases as human beings, and you should be aware of it.

You ≠ Other People

The bottom line here is that you are not other people. No matter what horror stories they tell you about people who tried to reach their dreams and failed, or how the only way to success is to get good grades, graduate college, and work your way up the corporate ladder, you have to come to the realization that you are not other people’s mistakes, and you have your own dreams that you want to realize in any way that you can. Don’t begin any line of thought in which you’ll assume that you’ll make the same mistakes as others; use the opportunity of hearing the stories to learn from their mistakes but don’t let that stop you from chasing what you want.

Now we’re starting to get to the core of how bad advice comes to be – it’s all based on a lack of communication.

What do I mean by this?

Well, since I already said that most advice comes from people assuming that you are the same as them, it follows that you, in order to get good advice, must communicate what you want and who you are to the person whose counsel you’re seeking. You have to say what your intended result is before you get advice on how to get there.

Paint a Full Picture

If I, for example, wanted to become a doctor, then I’d ask questions relevant to becoming a doctor, rather than asking for generic career advice. It sounds like common sense, but people don’t apply it enough.

That’s why the best people at giving advice are great listeners. They listen to what the person they’re advising truly wants, then they give the appropriate advice. They don’t spout out a one-size-fits all approach. That’s garbage, and doesn’t get anyone anywhere, yet many people insist on giving the same advice over and over again, even if they’re giving it to radically different people.

Moreover, you also should realize that the people who are going to give you advice know nothing more than you tell them about yourself, oftentimes. They never have the full picture of the circumstances. As such, whenever you’re going to be seeking advice, make sure you tell them what it is you want and the circumstances that surround you. Try to make your summary as objective and bias-free as possible. If you color your own story, the advice that you get back won’t be as good as it can be.

So, unless you’ve given people the full picture of your life and what you want as an outcome for a particular situation, take their advice with a grain of salt. Their biases – and yours as well – will taint their advice.

And, most of all, avoid taking generic advice. The more the advice is tailored to your wants and needs, the better it is – most of the time. Even if it is, stay objective and critical, and never take anything as truth just because someone told you so – even if that someone is me.

What do you think about my advice? Do you agree, or is this also generic advice that you should ignore? Let me know in the comments!

Learning to listen is perhaps one of the greatest skills we can posses, because the more we listen the better we can understand the world around us. I’ll be the first to admit that I haven’t been the greatest listener at times, but I’ve put a great effort into becoming a better communicator.

The following are 6 steps on how to become a more effective communicator.

Commit: If you want to become a better communicator you must commit to improvement. Begin to take notice of how you act during a typical conversation. Do you interrupt frequently? Do you reject other people’s ideas when they don’t resonate with your own? Do you talk as if you know everything? Making the effort to listen will help you remarkably in your relationships.

Don’t Interrupt: In order to effectively communicate you cannot, I repeat,cannot interrupt. Far too often we get so caught up in our own ideas that we blurt out in hopes of gaining control. It’s important that you let the entire message be conveyed before you give your input. When you interrupt you’re robbing the person’s chance to express his or herself fully. Don’t interrupt, you’ll have your chance to speak.

Put Down Your Shield: Many times when we have conversations we go into a discussion with preconceived notions which blocks our ability to learn and understand. Obviously it’s ok for you to have an opinion but, for you to genuinely listen you must open yourself up fully. It’s OK if you don’t agree with what’s being said, embrace any conversation as a place to learn.

You Don’t Know It All: Have you ever said ” That’s not right” without actually knowing? I know I have. The truth is, you don’t know everything so don’t pretend like you do. Instead of being a know-it-all welcome the fact that you have a lot to learn. When you admit you don’t know everything you’re open to listen with an entirely different perspective which significantly increases communication.

Focus: When talking with someone it’s important to give them your full attention. In our age of distraction, we have hundreds of things going on during a typical conversation which ends up taking away meaning. You can’t listen to someone talk while you’re texting on your cell phone. You cant listen to someone talk while you’re day dreaming. You can’t listen when you’re watching T.V. Only by focusing on the conversation at hand can you really take away the significance of what’s being said.

Care: Care about what’s being said. Care about the ideas being discussed. When you’re interested in what’s being it allows for the conversation to flow. We all know when someone isn’t interested in what we have to say. Don’t waste people’s time pretending you’re being attentive when you’re not. Give people the respect they deserve.

If you’re currently struggling with your relationships put in the effort to improve. For the next few days focus on becoming a becoming a better communicator by sincerely listening. You may be surprised by the results.

How do you communicate effectively? How do you give people your full attention? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments below.