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Tired of living on a schedule, following a list of “100 life goals” and a to-do list in a daily planner? Coach Mark Manson offers some hacks to add some chaos to your life. With their help, you will finally begin to act spontaneously, without sticking to any plan.
Imagine for a moment that I am your father – I understand, a dubious undertaking, but let’s try.
Let’s say we sit, sip beer, listen to the chirping of crickets and look at the departing moon. Or laughing at a joke from a movie we just watched. Or we remember how at the age of five you bathed a cat in the toilet. In general, an idyllic shot from a Hollywood movie.
It’s time for a heart-to-heart conversation, fatherly wisdom that will completely change your life and make you look at it differently. Clearing my throat, I tell you, “Dear son, I want to share with you some advice about three important life skills that no one has ever told you about.”
You, of course, turn to me and say: “What the hell, dad? You sound like the dude in the commercial.” And I answered: “Come on, show respect to your father and listen carefully!”
So, here’s what I could say.
1. Don’t take everything to heart
This is how we are arranged: everything that happens in life, we take it personally and pass it through ourselves. When we are successful, it seems to us that everyone around us is applauding us. When things are bad, we get angry and think we deserve better. We feel good only for a short period of time.
However, those who criticize us when we fail may have much more in common with us. You should not assume that others are constantly discussing our mistakes: after all, everyone is obsessed only with themselves and no one cares about others. To err is human – you just have to accept this lesson.
Everything that happens to us makes us stronger and it is part of our existence whether we like it or not.
2. Don’t hold on to your beliefs like a lifeline.
Even if beliefs are as easy to destroy as a house of cards, many continue to hold on to them in an attempt not to fall over the side of a sinking ship. It seems better to pretend that we do not hear anything, to cover our ears with our palms, than to agree with a different point of view.
I’ll give you an example. When we are 16, we form beliefs that apply to all areas of life. We know for sure that a girl will never fall in love with a “nerd” if he does not have a lot of money and an expensive car. But when a so-called nerd turns 30, that same belief can play tricks on him, influencing how a person behaves with the opposite sex.
We may have thousands of tiny failures, but only through them will we come to success.
The desire to realize mistakes and the desire to gain new knowledge is directly proportional to the changes that can occur in life.
Try this trick: right now, write down 20 things on a piece of paper that you would like to change about yourself. Challenge everything that is unhappy: “I’m lazy,” “I can’t talk to people,” “I can’t feel happy because I’m constantly irritated,” and so on. Once you hit 20 points, go through the list and write down what will happen if you change this in yourself. What will your life be like?
3. Learn to act without knowing in advance where it will lead
Since childhood, we are accustomed to doing what will lead to a specific goal. We clean the room – we deserve praise, we write a term paper – we get an assessment. No uncertainty: just do what needs to be done.
But in real life, this does not happen. No one tells us in what area we can build a successful career, no one guarantees that in love we will be happy “once and for all.” There is no way to know for sure whether we are doing the right thing or not.
Because of this, we avoid everything: we need to know the result without even starting to do something. Subsequently, life becomes a series of repetitive events – only because it is so safe.
Every day I receive letters from people who ask: “How to find a purpose in life?”, “Am I lucky in love?”, “How to understand that I am doing everything right?”.
I delete such emails without reading them. I don’t have a single thought on this!
First, no one knows what is best for you. Secondly, the fact that you are asking some guy on the Internet about this already indicates a problem: you want to know the result before you act.
Many of us definitely need to add chaos to our daily routine. Stop doing everything for the sake of some, sometimes fictitious and too illusory goal. Live for today, indulging in the flow of life. There may be thousands of tiny failures ahead of us, but only through them will we come to success.
About the Author: Mark Manson is a writer, entrepreneur, and coach.