Sometimes, you have to make your own luck. It’s not always the case, and it doesn’t always come easy, but if you work hard at doing the right things and treating people the right way, good things often come to you.
If you feel like you’re unlucky, that just means you have to work harder and focus on the positives around you. The world isn’t out to get you. It just is what it is. It’s not going out of its way to hurt or help you. You have to work as hard as you can, controlling what you can, and let everything else fall into place.
“I am a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work, the more I have of it.” – Samuel Goldwyn
“Different is better when it is more effective or more fun.” – Tim Ferriss
Embrace being different. Everyone is different in their own ways, but don’t be different just to get attention. Be different because you actually believe in what you’re doing and saying. Be different because that’s the real you and you are enjoying being yourself. Do things differently than the majority because you are striving to improve your life in some sense. Why would you try to be the same as everyone else? Why blend in with the crowd to the point where you’re completely unnoticed?
“Tetris teaches us that when you try to fit in, you’ll disappear.” – Alexus Pajitnov
I love one quote from Arnold Schwarzenegger. He said, “The worst thing I could be is the same as everyone else.” I believe that. Let’s look at some stats to see what “everyone else” is doing and why it’s better for your health to do the opposite…
The United States has an obesity rate of about ~35% and has an additional ~35% of the population is considered overweight. So you are considered to be overweight if you’re the “average” U.S. citizen. Why are we getting so big? If you listen to what everyone usually says, it’s because they have no time to work out or that eating healthy is too expensive.
Well, according to a Nielsen report, in 2017, the average citizen watched about 4 hours of tv per day! Yet somehow they have “no time” to work out, to cook a healthy meal, or to work on our physical fitness in a meaningful way.
Why would you want to follow the herd in this case? Why be “normal?” People will think that you’re weird if you work out daily, if you order a salad when going out to eat, or if you’re not up to speed on the latest Netflix series. You need to be ok with that. Because you aren’t being different just to be “weird.” You’re being different because you have found a better way to improve your life…a way that is more effective AND more fun.
People will call you crazy (sometimes to your face, other times behind your back). But who cares what other people think about YOUR life? Who should care the most about the quality of your life? You. And who can influence the outcome of your life the most? You. Don’t live your life only seeking the approval of others, otherwise you’ll never be happy.
“A person who doubts himself is like a man who would enlist in the ranks of his enemies and bear arms against himself. He makes his failure certain by himself being the first person to be convinced of it.” – Alexandre Dumas
Before you start something, you should at the very least have some sort of hope that you will succeed. If you think it’s possible, you give yourself a chance to achieve it.
Beyond hope though, you should strive to have confidence in yourself. The difference is that when you are hopeful, you’re not necessarily thinking that you are the reason for your success. With hopes and wishes, outside influences are the main reasons for your success or failure. You begin to rely on luck or on other people in order to achieve. But with confidence, while you still may need assistance from others, you understand that you determine your future with your actions.
If you doubt yourself or lack confidence, you almost guarantee that you will not succeed in whatever specific thing you are trying to achieve. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy because it will not only show in your actions, but others will pick up on your lack of confidence as well. If you’re selling something, the people whom you are selling to will feel that your lack of confidence is a reflection of how you feel about the product/service you are offering. As a result, they don’t buy from you (I don’t blame them), which then lowers your confidence even more.
Be confident in yourself. If you don’t think that you can do something yet, learn more about it. Read about it. Ask people who are already in that field about best practices and common pitfalls. Eventually though, you have to learn by doing. Once you put enough practice in, you will earn the confidence to succeed. And if you still don’t think you can do it, then you’re probably right. Your mind will find ways as to why you can’t or shouldn’t do it and it will become your truth.
Jocko Willink (former Navy Seal Lieutenant Commander) says, “Discipline equals freedom.” It seems counterintuitive, but if you think about it, it’s really not. Discipline will bring you success, which will give you freedom from the rat race of life. It’s the great separator between you and most other people. If you are able to be disciplined, you are able to do the hard things when you don’t want to. Most people will choose the easy route, but not you.
Because of your discipline, you are able to get up early, to challenge your mind, to get a good workout in, to cook healthy meals, to save more money, to be a better parent, to be a better employee/employer. Because of your discipline, you can set a goal and achieve it. You can accomplish so much more when you are disciplined, which will actually free your future self (as opposed to making decisions in the present day that ultimately enslaves your future self to working a job you don’t like for a paycheck).
Are you disciplined? You can be if you want to be. But you have to remain focused. You have to believe in yourself and you have change what you tell yourself. If you say that you’re not disciplined, you won’t be. Identify yourself as someone who does hard things and you will become that person.
