Author: cbarney.45

The pursuit of your potential

You should always look at results through the lens of did you try your best and did you max out your potential. It is better to play your best game and still lose to somebody who is better than you at that particular moment than it is to play substandard to your potential and blow the other team out. This may sound add to those who are ultra competitive, but think of it this way…

Would you rather play an intense game, give it your all, and lose by a single point to one of your peers? Or would you rather not really try (or care) and easily beat a child at a game? Which would give you more satisfaction?

Try to live up to your potential in everything you do. We are not all created equal with our talents, but we are not all going to give equal effort. If you try your best, and you know there is nothing else you could have done, that’s all you can ask for.

Protecting your time

Be intentional with your time. Protect it…not just from others asking you to do things, but also from yourself. It’s easy to binge watch a show. Be careful so that the 30 minute show doesn’t become a two hour watch session. It’s easy to consume social media. If you keep a social media account, make sure that you’re not mindlessly surfing through their carefully crafted content specifically targeted at delivering the most compelling stories to keep you on their website.

How can you be intentional with your time where you’re doing something to improve your knowledge AND what would make you feel better (long term)? Instead of consuming shallow, surface level content (including tv shows, social media posts, and even many magazine articles), try reading something with more depth.

Start small. Try reading 10 pages per day (from a book). Over the course of the year, this will equate to 3,650 pages per year. If an average book is 250 pages, you will have read between 14-15 books for the year! If you do this for ten years, you will have read 140-150 books.

So many people quit reading or only occasionally read after graduating high school or college. Be different. Set yourself apart from the collective average. Use your time intentionally. And then use your newly acquired knowledge to further yourself in your career or change your life for the better.

10 tips to happiness

10 tips to happiness:

1. Spend time by yourself in solitude (preferably outside). Get away from the noise, even if for only 10 minutes per day.

2. Always be learning. Just because you’re out of school doesn’t mean you should stop learning. In fact, now you can learn about subjects of your choosing! Pick something that interests you and dig in.

3. Give (volunteer time, money, material items/goods, or advice). We are meant to be part of a community or tribe. Don’t only live for yourself. That’s lonely. Live to help others – family, friends, and strangers.

4. Do something hard everyday. Try challenging yourself and overcoming obstacles. Go work out, build something with your hands, read a novel that makes you think, plant a garden…the bigger the hurdle, the bigger your reward when you overcome it.

5. Live/act in alignment with your morals…do what is right, even when it’s tough and even when nobody else is looking. Do not boast about this. You are doing what you’re supposed to do. Don’t do it for the reward of other people’s approval. This also involves “tough love.” Doing or saying what needs to be done or said for the betterment of that individual, even if it means telling them what they don’t want to hear.

6. Treat others with kindness, regardless of their status or what they can “give” to you. Think of “The Golden Rule.”

7. Do not attribute malice to what could be ignorance. Especially in today’s world, where it seems we assume anyone with a different opinion than ours is evil, maybe they just don’t know what they don’t know. Maybe they don’t have the life experience you have. They may be blind to certain situations because they haven’t seen it first hand. And guess what? The same can be said about you. You’re not an all-knowing, perfect, empathetic individual. And hopefully as you go through life you figure some new things out and change your opinions from time to time. It’s not flip-flopping. It’s growing.

8. Avoid comparing yourself to others. Comparison is the thief of joy. Be happy with what you have.

9. Care about/for something. If you have interests/hobbies, you will have something to look forward to. If you have to take care of something (like a pet, child, or parent) or if you have a cause you believe in, then you will find purpose in life.

10. Smile…it will make you feel better and it will make others feel better. Smiling is contagious. Try to spread it.

The grandma test

Have core values and principles guide your decisions. If you have those in place, whenever you face a specific circumstance which goes against your core values, you already have an answer of what not to do. The potential downfalls will be gray areas though. Be careful to react to events which do not have a clear answer. Try to prolong making a decision, if possible (especially an irreversible decision for something large). Gray areas can be portals to bad decisions.

One thing that you can do to minimize making bad choices is perform the “grandma test.” The grandma test is simply asking yourself if you would feel comfortable or proud telling your grandma what you just did. Are you embarrassed or ashamed by your actions? Would you not want to tell your grandma how you acted in a particular situation? If so, it does not pass the grandma test and you should not do that.

The easiest way to become healthier

If you want to be healthier, reduce the barriers that you have in front of improving your health. Don’t keep junk food in the house. Cool your meals instead of going out to eat. Keep your workout clothes close to your bed and work out early in the day. Start off each day by eating healthy food for your first meal. Gain momentum by doing the right thing early and often…then you’ll be less likely to want to squander what you’ve already done as the day goes on.

Another way to think of this is that most of the time, we try to go the path of the least resistance. If there is an easier, more convenient option, we go with it. So make the healthier way the easier way and you will take that option/make that choice more often.