Small decisions and small changes, added together, can produce big results and improve your life to levels you can hardly imagine. They range from the content you consume to the environment you are exposed to, the people you usually surround yourself with and, of course, and most importantly, your own thoughts, which lead you to give more importance to the wrong things.
All of this is easy to change once you become aware of how these factors influence you. What can you do to improve your life and lay the foundations that will help you prosper? Let’s start with exactly the opposite: what you should stop doing.
10 things you can do to improve and prosper in life
1. Limit the entertainment that is slowly making you dumber
I’m not talking about cutting out your Netflix series and movie marathons altogether. To some extent, I understand that we need entertainment to let our brains rest and to switch off. But only up to a point, because consuming too much entertainment and spending too much time playing video games can literally make you dumber. The brain atrophies when it doesn’t need to work. Include at least 30 minutes of reading in your daily habits.
Once you get into the habit of reading every day, you’ll notice your brain starting to think more nimbly. This is a fact. I’m the first to notice that when I go months without picking up a book, I’m shorter on good ideas.
Remember that, in terms of success, there is absolutely no difference between people who can’t read and people who don’t read.
2. Limit your exposure to certain content online and on social media
Every now and then it’s a good idea to clean up the people and pages you follow online. If, when you open your social media feed, all you find are profiles or pages talking about how bad the world is, how badly the government is doing, global warming and the end of the world, then, believe it or not, all that information is conditioning you unconsciously. In fact, if we bear in mind that tragedy gets more clicks online, and that online newspapers make their money from clicks, a newspaper’s job is to collect everything bad that has happened in the world (or exaggerate it) and summarise it for you. You need to be very brave to go out into the street after being exposed to the dangers of tsunamis, global warming, 13 rapes, 7 murders and so on.
And let’s not even get into those other profiles that offer nothing except dances “showing some skin”. Clean up your feed and you’ll notice the difference in your mental health.
3. Stop spending time on people who add nothing
As I like to say, in this life you’ll come across certain kinds of people: those who subtract, those who add and those who multiply. If you manage to surround yourself with the last kind, you’ll notice a before and after in your life. I’ve experienced this first-hand.
If a person isn’t adding, then they’re actually subtracting. Think about the kind of people you spend your time with. What do they offer you? What ideas for improving yourself have they suggested? If all they bring you is parties, alcohol and excess, you are quite possibly in an environment that won’t help you prosper. You have to distinguish between fun people and the right people. All of this in quotation marks, of course.
Not to mention cutting toxic people out of your life. And what is a toxic person? You already know what toxic people are, really, but if you have any doubts, here’s something to help you spot them: 9 types of toxic people you should avoid like the plague.
4. Stop being afraid to make plans on your own
Some people would like to do something, but because they can’t find anyone to go with them, they cancel the plan or tag along with someone else’s. I think we’ve all done this at some point. You’d like to go to the beach, but you can’t find anyone to go with you, so you don’t go. You’d like to go to the cinema to see a film, but how could you go to the cinema alone? What would the people in the theatre think when they see you watching a film on your own? Or even: how could you go out for a drink on your own one night? People might think you have no friends or that you’re a weirdo. This way of thinking hides a more serious problem than you might think, so much so that it gets its own point below.
5. Stop worrying about what other people will think
This piece of advice has been repeated so often that it’s as worn out as it is underrated. Even so, most people still live their lives based on what others might think. And I wish you knew the feeling of freedom you get on the day you sincerely decide that you couldn’t care less what other people think.
In my own case, if I feel like going to the cinema to see a particular film and the people I could go with want to see a different one, I have no problem going to see it alone. I’m not one for going out partying much, but sometimes I’ve gone out on my own just to have a drink. I go where I want, I stay as long as I want and I go home when I want. Will someone think I’m a strange guy for doing that? The truth is, I couldn’t care less. I’ll also tell you that when you don’t care, you often start the night alone, but you rarely end it alone. And yes, I usually go out with other people too. The point is that the fear of what others think of us is one of the 3 fears you must overcome if you want to move forward in life, along with the fear of rejection and the fear of saying no. Luckily, I can say that I freed myself from these fears a long time ago. And that sense of liberation is priceless.
See also: 12 things you can learn in under a minute that will serve you forever
6. Stop waiting for the motivation to do something
Whatever it is you want to do, stop looking for motivation, because most of the time motivation doesn’t work that way. Our natural state, most of the time, is a lack of motivation. The motivation cycle works the other way round.
First you start doing something, even if you don’t feel like it and have no energy or strength. The motivation comes afterwards. In other words, when you start doing something, that is the basic spark of energy needed to start the engine of motivation. To understand how this concept works and beat procrastination, akrasia or putting things off, read this article: Why don’t we do what we set out to do? There’s also this other article with a strategy to beat procrastination.
7. Stop arguing about politics, football or religion
I call this group of topics PFR (politics, football, religion). They are off-limits for arguments or debates, because every opinion on them is biased, at least when it comes to football and politics. As for religion, it’s simply a person’s belief, and out of good manners we should respect it.
I’ve seen good friends stop speaking to each other for years over a heated argument about politics, and I’ve even seen people come to blows over football. These debates aren’t worth it, because you’re not going to change the other person’s mind. Try to show a communist the benefits of capitalism and you’ll have made an enemy. As for football debates, I have to admit something. When I hear someone say, “We’ve got 11 Champions League titles and we’ve won the league”… we… have got… oh well!
8. Stop comparing yourself with others. You’re constantly screwing yourself over
Never measure your progress in life against other people’s, because you’ll end up frustrated. Whatever you have, there will always be someone who has more. The only way to measure your progress is against yourself: being better today than you were yesterday. This might seem harmless, but comparing yourself with others can lead to a serious psychological problem.
The line between admiration and envy is very blurry. In fact, as odd as it may sound, envy is simply admiration that has been badly managed. If you know someone who has achieved something you’d like to achieve and you look at them with admiration, you can follow in their footsteps and learn from them. That person will serve as your inspiration. If, on the other hand, someone has achieved something you’d like to achieve and all you do is criticise them, that’s envy born of a certain admiration, and that envy will end up ruining your life. In this article you can see how envy works.
9. Stop being where you don’t want to be
You have to learn to walk away from places where you don’t feel comfortable. You have to learn to tell people who add nothing to get lost, and to run from a relationship that is already bringing you more agony than pleasure. Take this literally: get rid of everything in your life that doesn’t add. And do it without hesitation.
I’m not going to tell you to walk out of your job immediately if you’re not happy there, but I will tell you that if your job is consuming you, you should at least start planning your exit. Start building new sources of income and looking for other opportunities. Don’t assume you’ll die doing something you don’t like. At the very least, try to do something to change the situation while you keep your job. When it comes to relationships, it’s even easier. If you’re not happy, you leave, full stop. Life is too short to suffer through it instead of enjoying it. Improving your life starts with getting rid of whatever is making it considerably worse.
10. Stop blaming others for your situation
On this point I’m going to be harsh. There is nothing in this life that you’re not responsible for. As long as you keep dodging responsibility for, and the power you have over, your own life through your decisions, you’ll stay stuck. Is there injustice? Of course. And it’s not your fault, but you are responsible for acting in spite of it.
Most people are afraid to accept the power they have over their own lives, because as soon as they do, they’ll know they can no longer complain. And complaining feels good, even if it doesn’t produce results. Accept that you are responsible for steering your life, because the moment you realise that you’re in control of your life is when you can start changing it. When you blame others and don’t take responsibility for your situation, it’s as if the people you blame were also in charge of fixing your life. And I’m sorry, but that isn’t going to happen unless you make it happen.
See also: 6 short stories that will make you think
Featured image: Hernán Piñera, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Flickr.
