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8 Life Lessons to Learn Before It’s Too Late

Things I wish I had learned earlier


Photo by Fabio Comparelli on Unsplash
Photo by Fabio Comparelli on Unsplash


We all make mistakes.


That is part of being human.


It is either through making our own mistakes or by learning from other people’s mistakes that we grow.


The good news is that we can speed up the process by taking action, learning, and trying many things.


Here are eight lessons/things I wish I had started doing earlier:


1. Caring less about what people think.

What people think will be different from what you want in some situations.


It can be difficult to go for what you want and be yourself fully in your late teens or early 20s. Or at any age, for that matter.


It might seem like you will hang around the same people forever, but most likely, you will drift away from some people and get closer to others.


You might just as well speed up this process by hanging around people with whom you can be truly authentic rather than wasting time being someone you are not.


2. Valuing my time more.

If you are in your late teens or 20s, it might seem like you will be young forever. That is not the case, though.


Value and cherish those youthful moments, and don’t waste them on video games or meaningless entertainment. Take chances. Travel. Experience new things. Leave your comfort zone. Dream and take action.


Don’t waste time on stupid things.


I wasted way too much time before I started valuing my time. But this is actually a blessing in disguise in some ways, as I am way more conscious about how I spend it now than most people would be.


Anyway, time is our most valuable asset!


3. Learning self-acceptance.

I used to be shy and sometimes socially anxious, and being okay with that would have saved me a lot of pain and frustration.


Trying to hide from it only made things worse.


It is only when we see things from a place of objectivity that we are free to take action to improve ourselves. In addition, nobody is perfect, and being able to accept yourself for who you are is very powerful.


4. Reading more at an earlier age.

“In my whole life, I have known no wise people (over a broad subject matter area) who didn’t read all the time — none, zero.” — Charlie Munger.


Reading has helped me put things into perspective.


Reading expands our understanding of the world, particularly if it is something pragmatically useful.


5. Finding my values and moral code.

It can be hard to make sense of the world and decide how you want to live and what you consider honorable and satisfying at an early age.


This has to come through experience, but reading and putting yourself out there will speed up the process.


It is better to choose your own way to view the world based on your experiences and beliefs than to buy into what is accepted.


Around age 24, I realized I hadn’t really found out what I wanted to do with my life, so I started reading a lot, trying new things, and putting myself out there.


A few months later, I knew how I wanted to live for the time being and what I wanted to accomplish. Of course, this will change over time but finally being certain about what I wanted was amazing.


Taking action was the key.


6. Letting go of expectations.

I feel liberated in having no expectations, only aspirations. By this, I mean that however hard life knocks me down tomorrow, I will try my best not to feel bad about it because I constantly remind myself I am not entitled to anything.


It is good not to become too attached to certain outcomes because when they don’t happen, it hurts, and this will happen over and over.


When I was younger, I felt entitled to a lot of things and that made me negative and unable to work hard.


Letting go of that and taking personal repsonsibility was very helpful in many ways.


7. Being less selfish.

We are actually helping ourselves when we are helping others.


Depression and excessive self-focus are practically the same thing. So, focusing outwardly is good for others and for your personal happiness.


The most happy people focus on others, while the least happy people focus obsessively on themselves.


8. Learning to be patient.

This one is huge. In my early twenties, I was very impatient and unable to commit to something for a longer time.


I did one thing, though, which was to work at a call center for a couple of years to overcome my shyness and social anxiety. But, apart from this, everything I did was very short-sighted.


The way to build success is to build a foundation and then steadly and slowly build on top of that. In most cases, investing, for example, without knowing business and investing fundamentals and focusing on the trendy thing results in a thinner wallet.


Have the patience to build a skillset. Without a skillset, it is very hard to build wealth. It is better to have the patience to build a skill since results will tend to follow. Most things worth having in life requires patience.


Final thoughts

It is never too late to start living a better life.


Sometimes, improving your situation in life requires just tweaking a few small things.


At least, that is how it feels to me sometimes.


Experiences or learning can change how you think. And what we think determines our actions, which determines our lives.


So, small lessons can make a huge difference with time. It is better to learn important lessons early rather than late.




 
 
 

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HAVARD MELA

is an author, high performance coach and electrical engineer. He is just a guy who loves to write and share insights from his path to living a better life.



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