Having Problems :- Try to deal with it

Everyone has problems. I’ve never met someone who has a perfect life. Wait, I have to put that differently.

I actually meet people who pretend they have a perfect life all the time. You know, you meet someone and ask, “how are you?”

And they start a monolog about perfect life their life is, and how great everything is going for them — and often, they’re just full of shit.

No, real people have problems. So, what’s your problem?

• Stuck in a bad relationship?
• Dealing with depression?
• Do you always lie?
• Can’t finish anything?
• Addicted to substances? Or gaming, porn, dating, etc?
• Can’t stop complaining?
• Hate the world and everyone in it?
• Didn’t speak to your parents for years?
• Can’t stop procrastinating?

I’m a person who genuinely cares about others. So when I meet people, I take the time to get to know them. And over the last decade, I’ve met people from all over the world. And especially in the last year when I started blogging, I connected with more than one thousand people online.

Want to hear a secret? Everyone has issues. For example, I suck at relationships. I’m very impatient. And I often don’t give people second chances. I’m not perfect. I have to change those things.

But most people will never do something about their problems. And you know what happens when you don’t solve your problems?

THEY WILL NEVER GO AWAY.

One of my friends recently got out of a bad relationship. She told me that she always complained about her boyfriend to her friends but never did anything about it.

She woke up miserable. She went to bed miserable. And everything in between was no better.

It took her years to deal with her problems. She was afraid to be alone.

Did it get any easier by waiting? Nope. You just have to deal with it. And now is better than later.

If you have a problem in your life, it doesn’t mean that the world will end. What do you think? Just because you have a problem, the world will stop spinning? I’ll make a bet with you. No matter how big your problem is, we’ll all still be here tomorrow.

The only thing you can do is deal with your problems. You have to MAKE your problems go away.

What’s the use of complaining or crying about something? Do you want sympathy? That doesn’t change anything. Your problem will still be there, waiting for you when you’re done complaining.

“Yeah, but I…”

But, what? There’s always a but.

Look, I’m not saying that it’s easy. If you want to make your problems go away, you have to do something different. You have to try a different way. Change your mindset. Shift your thinking.

Otherwise, you always think you’re helpless. Because if you already knew how to solve your problems, you probably already did. But the truth is that you didn’t. So it starts with admitting that you have a problem that you can’t solve.

Difficult, isn’t it? But it doesn’t mean you can NEVER solve your problems. It just requires some extra effort.

I like what Albert Einstein said about solving our problems:

“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.”

If you have a problem, do something, because something is better than nothing. And yet, most people do nothing. Don’t be “most people.” Be bigger than that.

Because that’s what’s required of you: Be bigger than your problem.

Make your life Exiting ...

When you go to bed at night, are you excited to wake up the next morning? Is there something you can’t wait for?

For the past three years or so, I’ve asked myself that question many nights. And often, I had nothing to be excited about. Those days were not special. They were like the day before.

It’s the opposite of big days like your first day at a new job, the first time you go on a holiday with your girlfriend/boyfriend, getting your diploma, signing a big deal; you name it.

Those things are nice and all. But most days of your life are the same. Do you know that feeling? You look back, and time seems to blend. You can’t separate days from each other. There’s a real danger in that feeling.

Because the next step is that you can’t separate the weeks from each other. That is what happens when every day is the same. And after a while, you stop noticing many things. You just go with it.

And finally, the years start to blend. And all of a sudden, you’re 80 years old, and you’re sitting in a chair, and you say:

“What happened to my life? Where did all my time go?”

I think many people underestimate the value of life. I’ve done that for many years as well. When I look back at my time in college, I think that I had a great time. But I can’t recall much from those years. It’s just like this one big event.

It’s like: “College was awesome.” I say it like I went for a week. But the truth is that I completed two degrees in six years. SIX years! That’s a long time.

But I just remember that I went out a lot, had fun, and did A LOT of chilling with my friends. It was always the same.

And after I got out of college, I worked a lot, and travelled a lot. Again, when I look back, it seems like time moved fast.

I’ve thought a lot about why that is. And I think that the Stoic philosopher, Seneca, who lived about 2000 years ago, had a good answer:

“Begin at once to live, and count each separate day as a separate life.”

The problem is that we don’t treat every single day as a separate life at all. We wake up, drink coffee/tea, take care of our family, go to work, make money, do groceries, have drinks, watch Netflix, and we go to bed. Or whatever your routine is.

The next day you wake up, and you repeat the EXACT same thing.

Do you know that proverb; variety is the spice of life? I’m sure you do. But why don’t you spice up your life?

Would you eat the same food every single day of your life? No one does that. You switch it up. One day you have some Italian, then some Chinese, maybe some Indian. Whatever. Or if you eat one cuisine, you switch up the herbs or spices.

So why on earth don’t you do that with your life?

If you’re not excited. Get excited. 

The funny thing is that variety is simple. Here’s another cliché for you — the best things in life are free.

Every day, pick something you want to enjoy. One day you can enjoy the rain, the other day you can enjoy the sunset.

Or how about having your favorite breakfast tomorrow? Or how about trying a whole new breakfast from another cuisine? I’m just throwing some tiny ideas at you. Variety doesn’t have to be big.

Get excited about life. Learn new skills. Languages. Cultures. Build a strong body. Switch up the little things. All those little things make life long and interesting.

These days, I’m glad that time doesn’t blend anymore. I treat every day as a separate life. And every day I’m a different person. A little bit stronger, educated, and different than the day before.

If you want to enjoy life, you have to make it happen. A good life doesn’t happen to you. Most people think that’s the case. They ask: “Why does my life suck?” Well, if you want a good life, YOU have to turn that into a reality. No one’s going to do it for you.

When you’re in bed, ask yourself: Am I excited about tomorrow?

• If the answer is no many days in a row, it’s time to do something about it.
• If the answer is maybe, ask again tomorrow, maybe you had a shitty day.
• If the answer is yes, go to bed with a smile on your face, and jump out of your bed in the morning.

Change is good, but you also have to be practical. You have responsibilities, issues, people to take care of, bills to pay, etc. So you can’t just hop on a plane and go to the Maldives if your life sucks right now.

But you CAN do many other small things that turn every day into a separate life. So fucking do it.

To set a goal is important but for that effort is necessary....

Do you set high goals for yourself? If you’re ambitious, or if you simply want to do a lot of things in life — there’s something you might have experienced: Goals can sometimes be counterproductive.

I see it a lot with the highest achieving people. When you want to live a meaningful life, you quickly feel like you need to do a lot of things, and set many goals.

I also like to set a goal before I start something, so I know what direction I’m heading. Also, I love to plan my goals with the end in mind. When you start with the end in mind (your goal), you can easily trace it back to daily actions.

For example, when I started running, I set a goal: Run 30 minutes a day for six days a week. From there, I deconstructed my goal to smaller, and more achievable goals.

First, I walked for 30 minutes a day. Then, I walked for 20 minutes a day and ran the other 10 minutes. I continued that process until I ran for 30 minutes straight.

Or, let’s say that you’re an entrepreneur, and want to earn X amount of money per month. That means you have to sell X products/services. And if your conversion rate is, for example, 3.5%, you can quickly calculate how many calls/emails/interactions with prospects you need per day.

Now, that’s relatively straightforward.

But how about bigger or less specific goals?

Things like:

• “I want to make a million dollars before I’m X years old.”
• “I want to run a marathon this year.”
• “I want to have 10K followers by the end of this year.”
• “I want to be happy.”
• “I want to get married asap.”

You can only calculate or predict so much. There are limitations to goal setting.

I’ve adopted many strategies from Stoic philosophy. And one of the things that Stoic philosophers talk about is how we should only focus on the things we control.

In The Obstacle Is The Way, Ryan Holiday writes about the Stoic expression:

“Ta eph’hemin, ta ouk eph’hemin.” What is up to us, what is not up to us.

If you think about it, there’s only one thing that is up to us: Our actions.

Here’s a list of stuff you don’t control:

• The future
• Other people
• The economy
• Nature

But when you chase big goals that should happen in the future, you pretend like you do control those things. And that is exactly the danger of goal setting. We trick ourselves into believing that we can control the outcome of our lives.

That is a lie.

In a way, setting goals is a lie. But does that mean we should stop setting goals altogether? No, you’re not a Buddhist monk. Life is intended to be lived, and we should push our boundaries if we want to grow. Setting outrageous goals can sometimes help you to do that.

But, those goals become counterproductive when you experience setbacks.

Are you a failure if you only got 100 followers instead of 10.000? Or what if you didn’t run a marathon? Are you a loser if your marriage fails? Or if you’re not happy at a particular time in your life?

We’re our own worst enemy with accountability. We think in binary numbers. Black or white. You win or you lose.

And that often causes tunnel vision—we stare blindly on our goal, and when things don’t go our way, we experience stress. We worry about things we can’t control.

If you see that you can’t achieve your goals, don’t get stressed. Change your approach instead.

Goals serve a purpose, right? You want a sense of direction. Well, you can get that same outcome by having systems instead of goals.

Goal = Event in the future.
System = Recurring process.

Instead of focusing on the destination, focus on the process.

• Want to get rich? Add value to other people’s lives.
• Want to get recognition? Do great work.
• Want to win a race? Train hard.
• Want to be happy? Don’t take life too seriously.

Also, stop pursuing things you don’t need.

More is not always better, you know. Especially not when it comes to possessions, money, and status. Seneca put it best:

“It is not the man who has too little that is poor, but the one who hankers after more.”

Another thing: Change your expectations.

Recently I was talking to my friend , who’s a former pro ice-skater.  We were talking about setting goals when he said:

“Many athletes set a goal to win a medal at the Olympics. But out of the thousands of athletes, in every sport, only a few qualify for the Olympics.

Now, let’s say you’re fortunate enough to qualify. When you start the Olympics, there are X amount of athletes who compete for the gold medal. Out of all those people, only 3 will get a medal. And only 1 person will get the gold medal.

Not everyone can be that 1 person.”

And yet, we all expect to achieve our goals. But just because you didn’t win or didn’t achieve your goals, it doesn’t mean you didn’t work hard.

That’s why I prefer to reward effort instead of achievement. To me, effort is the real achievement. And luckily for you and me, effort is one of the few things in life that we control.

So, no matter what you do, control your effort. That means; give it your all.

If something is not good enough, stop doing it.

How often have you said, “I’ve done a good enough job,” and moved on?

If you’re like me, that’s the story of your life. It started when I was in school. I didn’t care about my grades. I just wanted to finish something and move on.

I always said, “no one cares about your grades.” And I believed that in “real life” no looks at your report cards from ages ago. And in fact, it’s true. Other than my parents, no one has ever looked at my grades — not from high school, and not from college.

That doesn’t mean no one looks at grades; some employers take grades very seriously. But there are not that many professions that require high grades.

If you want to get into certain law firms, sure, you need high grades, even to be considered. But I didn’t want to become a lawyer, accountant, or any other profession that requires high grades.

While I had nothing to prove to others, I forgot one person who I actually did everything for: Me.

“Nothing can bring you peace but yourself. Nothing can bring you peace but the triumph of principles.”
― Ralph Waldo Emerson

You don’t go to school for other people. You don’t work for other people. But all we think about is external factors. We think about the schools we want to get into and the companies we want to work for.

We think about what we have to say to other people when the ask, “what do you do?”

All of that is great, but it doesn’t matter. You don’t live for other people. You live for you. So why not do your best — for no other reason than yourself?

I didn’t get that concept for years. I don’t regret much in life, but here’s one thing I do regret: That I screwed around for many years.

In school, I just wanted to pass my classes — I just wanted to play basketball and chase girls. “Good enough,” was really good enough for me.

I was like, “what’s the point?” Well, you idiot; the point is YOU. But unfortunately, I don’t have a Delorean that takes me back to the past so I could tell myself that.

What kind of things do you do that are just “good enough?”

• Your job?
• Your relationship?
• Your education?
• Your health?
• Your life?

Look, in modern civilization, we live together with other people. And often, people tell you what to do. Your school teacher, boss, mother, father, spouse, all probably have something to say to you. And sometimes, you don’t like that.

But here’s the thing: You’re not doing it for them. You do things for yourself. For your personal development, and for the quality of your life.

But when you’re in the middle of it, you can’t see the point.

We’ve all been there; you have a shitty job and you don’t do your best. Believe me, I’ve been there. But I was wrong.

What’s the point? You’re not helping anyone by putting in the minimum amount of effort — just to get a paycheck.

“I hate my boss and company. I’m just going to check in and out. Fuck them.” I often hear that statement with people who don’t like their job.

I also see a lot of jobless people who don’t want to work for free. If you’re jobless for a long time, you’re not helping anybody. So you might as well get up and work for free. It’s a win-win situation. Do whatever it takes.

How about a “good enough” relationship? Look, I’m not 16; life is not a romantic movie. You and your partner are not going to be in love forever with the same intensity and die at the same moment when you’re old, while you’re grabbing each other’s hand like in The Notebook.

But come on, how often do relationships die a quiet death? Sure, there are many reasons such a thing can happen. But one of the biggest reasons is a disease called “good enough.”

Giving your woman flowers without any special occasion? “Hmm, everything is good, I’d rather go home and watch an episode of Game of Thrones.” Lazy mofo.

No more “good enough.”

• The report you have to write.
• The people that you’re leading.
• The product that you’re building.
• The book that you’re writing.
• The kids that you’re raising.
• The strategy that you’re creating.
• The test that you’re taking.
• The app that you’re building.
• The uncomfortable conversation that you’re having.

I think that Jony Ive, designer of many of Apple’s products, including the MacBook Pro, MacBook Air, iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch, put it well:

“If something is not good enough, stop doing it.”

That’s a simple rule to live by. If it’s not good enough, stop. Think about how you can do a good job. And then: Don’t stop again until you’ve done a great job.