Author: cbarney.45

Mastering yourself

“The first and greatest victory is to conquer yourself.” – Plato

If you can’t control your emotions, acting on impulse, or “forcing” yourself to do what you know needs to be done, you are already at a disadvantage.

So many people worry about persuading others to do what they want, or to somehow influence their decisions, but don’t take into consideration the fact that if they are able to conquer themselves, they will be much better off.

Practice discipline. Practice self-control. Practice mastering your thoughts (and limiting negative self-talk). Focus on what you can control (your thoughts, words, and actions) and let the rest go.

Opportunity cost

If you’re saying “yes” to one thing (and this applies to anything in life), that means you are saying “no” to something else.

What is your opportunity cost? We can’t be in two places at once. We only have so much time in the day. We have limited resources. So by saying yes to one thing, it is costing you the opportunity to do something else.

Choose what you spend your time, energy, and money on wisely. If you always want to do what feels good in the moment, you may be sacrificing the well-being of your future self.

“On sale”

You know that clearance rack, or the item that is on sale?

You can walk past it without buying anything…

Before you put whatever item is on sale into your shopping cart (whether that’s online or in person), ask yourself if this is something you actually need or if you just like a “bargain.”

One could argue that it’s not a bargain at all if you end up spending money on something you didn’t intend to…

Experience makes things easier

Whenever you first encounter a new problem, it can seem overwhelming. You don’t know what to do. Trying to find the right answer or response is hard. But once you figure it out, once you’ve experienced it, the next time you face that problem, it will seem easier. But the obstacle hasn’t changed, only your ability to overcome that obstacle has.

The obstacle is what it is. How you (and others) view it depends on what it is in comparison to. Your experience has shaped you and helped strengthen you, making the “hurdle” that is the obstacle appear to shrink. And over time, as you continue clearing the hurdle with relative ease, it will seem even smaller.

So, as you face new challenges, keep that in perspective. It may seem like a massive undertaking today, but you’ll look back at this in a year and wonder why you thought it was such a big deal.

Influence vs control

You can’t make anyone do something they don’t want to do. Or, if you do get them to do it and they didn’t want to do it in the first place (if they didn’t think they needed to do it/didn’t see value in doing it), they won’t benefit from it the way you think they will. If they are not open to it and they’re not mentally ready to make the change, you’ll both end up wasting time and getting frustrated with each other.

We can influence another person’s actions, but we can’t control their actions. Despite the fact that we may truly believe it will help that person, they have to be the ones who want to do the activity, to make the change, and to benefit from the action. If they don’t want it, it won’t work.

Try to appeal to their emotions first. Why should they want to do what you’re asking them to do? What are the benefits to them? What’s most important to them and how will it improve that? Once you’ve got their attention and they have bought in, then you can reason with them logically. Don’t forget this part (logic) either. Emotions come and go. Logic will stick with them and help them understand why it’s important, but logic does not create the “want” of doing the action.