Start with clarity
Leo Tolstoy’s wise words we keep forgetting
Welcome, curious minds,
You’re reading Personal Growth Wisdom Newsletter — actionable ideas from great minds on practical philosophy, psychology, productivity and self improvement to build a career or life you love.
Change is binary. You are either getting better or worse.
But it doesn’t end there. People who are intentional about change can influence the trajectory of their lives. They become better versions of themselves. Almost every area of your life can be improved if you take control of the progression or direction. And you can sustain your personal growth if you leverage compound growth. William James once said, “All our life, so far as it has definite form, is but a mass of habits — practical, emotional, and intellectual — systematically organized for our weal or woe, and bearing us irresistibly toward our destiny, whatever the latter may be.”
The habits you have adopted for your wealth, relationship, health, intellectual life, or career are either working for you or against you. One way to measure their effectiveness is to compare your past self to the present self. Have you made progress in the last two years? Are you wiser than you were six months ago? Have you learned any complementary skills in the past year? Is your investment portfolio leveraging compound interest?
As uncomfortable as they may be, the difficult questions we ask ourselves every quarter or year are meant to help us grow and design a better future for ourselves. Lack of clarity about where we are headed in life can show up in almost every area of life. That’s why it’s essential to take control of your change.
In his new book, High Performance Habits: How Extraordinary People Become That Way, Brendon Burchard said, “Often, the journey to greatness begins the moment our preferences for comfort and certainty are overruled by a greater purpose that requires challenge and contribution.”
Successful people apply life principles differently
But, the real question is: how do you embrace good habits you can sustain? Change is hard to teach, even to intelligent people. That’s why you must design your own change. There’s no universal truth — there’s only what works for your unique circumstances. If I can save 40% of my income every year, it doesn’t mean you should adopt the same approach to build wealth.
If investing 10% of your income is what you can afford right now, stick to that. As long as you can make it consistent, it’s good enough.
What works for Warren Buffett may not necessarily work for Ray Dalio. They are both highly successful investors, but they are pursuing different goals. And so are you — your life, career, or investment goals are entirely different from mine.
We can’t all invest like Buffett or Dalio, but we can apply some of his lessons and advice that work for us. The most important thing is to make that habit sustainable. Everyone plays a different game in life. And it has to work for you; otherwise, you will give up.
Learn to understand your own game, and most importantly, what you want to get out of it for your future self, and then play it your way.
“Think for yourself to decide 1) what you want, 2) what is true, and 3) what you should do to achieve #1 in light of #2 . . . . . . and do that with humility and open-mindedness so that you consider the best thinking available to you,” writes Ray Dalio, in his book Principles: Life and Work.
You alone are in charge of the trajectory of your life — not experts, mentors, coaches, successful people, or influencers. You know yourself more than anyone will ever know. Do what works for you and your future self. No matter what you learn from experts, you have to learn to apply, measure, and do more of what’s working for you. Your own unique goals, ambitions should define the direction of your life. “When you get trapped by the belief that there’s just one right way to do something, you set yourself up for failure,” says J.D. Roth.
There are no one-size-fits-all rules or principles in life. Your personal situation determines the rules you should be applying in your life. But first, make your destination clear — define what you want and then identify the principles, habits, rituals, and behaviours that can work for you in the long term.
Arthur Schopenhauer on pain and boredom
“The most general survey shows us that the two foes of human happiness are pain and boredom. We may go further, and say that in the degree in which we are fortunate enough to get away from the one, we approach the other. Life presents, in fact, a more or less violent oscillation between the two. The reason of this is that each of these two poles stands in a double antagonism to the other, external or objective, and inner or subjective. Needy surroundings and poverty produce pain; while, if a man is more than well off, he is bored. Accordingly, while the lower classes are engaged in a ceaseless struggle with need, in other words, with pain, the upper carry on a constant and often desperate battle with boredom.”
Source: Wisdom of Life
Vincent van Gogh on taking action
“I tell you, if one wants to be active, one mustn’t be afraid to do something wrong sometimes, not afraid to lapse into some mistakes. To be good — many people think that they’ll achieve it by doing no harm — and that’s a lie, and you said yourself in the past that it was a lie. That leads to stagnation, to mediocrity…
You don’t know how paralyzing it is, that stare from a blank canvas that says to the painter, “You can’t do anything.” The canvas has an idiotic stare, and mesmerizes some painters so that they turn into idiots themselves. Many painters are afraid of the blank canvas, but the blank canvas is afraid of the truly passionate painter who dares — and who has once broken the spell of “You can’t.”
Life itself likewise always turns towards one an infinitely meaningless, discouraging, dispiriting blank side on which there is nothing, any more than on a blank canvas. But however meaningless and vain, however dead life appears, the man of faith, of energy, of warmth, and who knows something, doesn’t let himself be fobbed off like that. He steps in and does something…”
Source: Ever Yours: The Essential Letters
An activity worth doing
Create a list of activities and values (max 12) that make you feel content and part of a healthy humanity. Essentially, what does a good week look like to you?
It might be writing, photographing, meaningful conversations, sharing what you know, spending time in nature, writing to friends or having kind boundaries. Rate your success for engaging with each and use it as a reflection for making changes (when we have this privilege).
Atul Gawande on being human
“In the end, people don't view their life as merely the average of all its moments—which, after all, is mostly nothing much plus some sleep. For human beings, life is meaningful because it is a story. A story has a sense of a whole, and its arc is determined by the significant moments, the ones where something happens. Measurements of people's minute-by-minute levels of pleasure and pain miss this fundamental aspect of human existence. A seemingly happy life maybe empty. A seemingly difficult life may be devoted to a great cause. We have purposes larger than ourselves.”
Source— Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End
Food for thought from me (free read on Medium)
>Leo Tolstoy’s Wise Words We Keep Forgetting
Most people like to think of themselves as “fixers.” They look for complicated answers to simple questions. Robust apps. Advanced journals. Expensive retreats. Another book promising the one secret to life. They try to do all sorts of clever and difficult things to improve life. Sometimes, the simplest and easiest thing to do is to refuse to participate in activities that drain your soul.
I try to remember writer Leo Tolstoy’s advice every day.
A quote worth repeating
“I never wish to be easily defined. I’d rather float over other people’s minds as something strictly fluid and non-perceivable; more like a transparent, paradoxically iridescent creature rather than an actual person.” As someone who’s had quite a winding career, I’ve often felt pressure to define myself, but now I actually appreciate the lack of definition and learned to embrace it.— Franz Kafka
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Until Next Week,
Be Well.
Thomas Oppong | The Thinking Edge | The Kaizen Method
I finished reading it, and while I'm not sure how to describe my feelings, I really appreciate you for it.
Much wisdom packed in one Stack. I am grateful.