Personal Guiding Principle To Live a Better Life
It’s working great for me, and I am sure it will work for you too.
I love books.
I have no idea when I fell in love with reading. In the beginning, while developing this habit, I read almost everything.
Now, my reading is more purposeful. This habit has helped me develop some basic life principles that will help me function better in life or, I would say, live a better life in the long run.
Don’t chase someone else’s flashy life.
Here is a great quote by none other than Steve Jobs to help you understand this core concept and why it’s important to lead a better life.
“Your time is limited, don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma, which is living the result of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of other’s opinion drown your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition, they somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.” — Steve Jobs
Life is busy.
Everyone seems in a rush to achieve something. They don’t even know why they need it.
I guess these are the wants, not the needs, that keep us pushing in the vague to achieve endless games.
Let me ask you a couple of questions.
Why do you do what you do?
Keep asking yourself this question every day until you find an answer.
No one is going to help but yourself; in the end, it's your finding. Let me ask again.
To lead a better life, find out why you are after what you are after.
Just be in the rat race???
If you don’t know how much you need, the default will easily become...
MORE!
And the MORE has a never-ending goal; the MORE will keep you unsatisfied and unhappy.
Here are a couple of questions for you to ask before laying some foundational rules for living a better life.
Are you excited every single moment?
Do you love what you are doing?
Are you living your best life? The life you want, the life you dreamed when you was happy.
How do you feel about your life today? Right NOW
The best and the worst parts
The best part: Only you can answer if you are leading the better life you always wanted to live with all the comfort based on your desires, needs, wants, and circumstances.
The worst part: Only you can answer if you are not living the dream. Maybe you have too many desires and wants but not a fulfilling outcome.
That’s because you are always grinding, despising, and looking at what you have already achieved.
Just take a deep breath and pause for a second to enjoy what you have already achieved in life.
I will share my life principles in a couple of posts. Today’s principle is working hard but in a disciplined way.
Deep work or hard work
Both are important.
In my early 20s, I had no idea what deep work was.
Like a new kid in town, I wanted to do everything without digging deep and understanding one concept at a time.
As a result, my life wasn’t moving ahead. Let me reassure you that I was working hard, but there was too much on my plate.
For example, I worked full-time and then ran a couple of online dropshipping and affiliate marketing websites. On my dropshipping website, I uploaded 500+ products, and it looked like an Amazon store, but I wasn't getting anything; I was just another tiny fish in a pond.
The same thing happened when I was running an affiliate marketing website; it was not going anywhere because product reviews were so basic. I was not digging deep or trying to understand why this product is better than what you, as a customer, are looking for right now.
My life completely tranformed when I developed this habit ONE THING at a time.
Again, credit goes to these two books.
Now, I have much more on my plate, but in a systematic way.
I am running a couple of businesses and working full-time, but every venture has a system.
I outsource what I can control by working an hour weekly and focusing on what I truly enjoy.
At the moment, that’s writing.
However, most of the time, my writing is focused on FRAMEWORKS/Mental Models, productivity, health, and doing 30-day challenges rather than sharing everything.
Wrapping up
My core principle, which is helping me improve my life on a daily basis, is DEEP FOCUS.
Do not multitask, regardless of how tiny the task is. Focus on one thing at a time.
Find your most productive time frame.
For example, I am really productive when everyone is sleeping, even the cars are sleeping (lol). There is no traffic, no noise at all, and that happens at 4:30 AM in the morning.
Someone is going to ask me how often I wake up at 4:30 AM. Here is my response.
“I only write when inspiration strikes; fortunately, it strikes every morning at 9 o’clock sharp” — W. Somerset Maugham.
I do deep work each morning from 5 to 7:30 AM using the 50–10 Pomodoro technique. It’s working great for me.
Before you say it’s a waste of time and will not work, I challenge you to do it every day for 30 days and then let me know. Then and only then can we see if there is another problem.
Book recommendation:
Note : Steve Jobs Gifted This Book to 500+ People
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