Create the best version of yourself

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Once you have made your wish list, try to evaluate each wish in the three currencies mentioned above. To do this, you need to ask the following questions:

– How much time do you need to spend to achieve this goal? This could be years, months, days or hours.

– How much money do you need to spend?

– How many days off do you need to take to realize your desire?

– What additional conditions do you need to create in order to achieve this goal?

To make it clearer, let me give you an example (see Figure 3).

Figure 3

The more specific you are about your desires and the conditions for achieving them, the easier it will be for you to plan your life. Since you will already understand the real price of your desires and the conditions that need to be created. In the future, these records will still be useful to you.

And now that you understand all this, take another look at your list. Perhaps, after your evaluation, you are already reluctant to realize any of your desires. Especially after looking at your balance on the card.

I realize that this is unusual for you and may look silly, but trust me, this is how it works. We need to visually see information about our resources and information about prices so that we have a “sober” assessment of our needs and possibilities in our heads.

When we dream about something, that’s good. But when we spend money and time recklessly, on things we just want to buy, that’s bad, especially if you’re doing it on a credit card.

In general, if we talk about spontaneous purchases, we can say that this is an extremely unjustified behavior. If you have specific goals and desires, then to realize them you need to spend resources on them, not on fleeting needs. Because with these actions you deprive yourself of the opportunity to realize your goal in the time frame you planned earlier. But this is about respecting your choice and self-discipline, and we will talk about it later, now it is important to deal with our desires.

As you may have already realized, there are some desires that require only money. These are, as a rule, the purchase of household appliances, real estate, vehicles, and any material goods that make our life more comfortable and pleasant. Let’s put them in the first category of complexity. We will assign the second category of complexity to desires that require not only money but also time. To the third category we will refer complex desires, those for the realization of which, in addition to money and time, we need additional conditions.

So, let’s look at a situation where you want to buy an expensive apartment or car. You don’t have the money to buy it now. And you are faced with a choice: take out a loan and survive on the remaining money or increase your income and earn the necessary amount. But this is only a choice that lies on the surface. And, as a rule, it puts you in a dead end. After all, you don’t want to take out a loan and at the same time you don’t understand how you can increase your income. Since, if you think about it, you have a good job, where you are slowly but surely climbing the career ladder, receive bonuses, you are valued and respected. And in general, you have everything like everyone else – “work – home – work”. You work from morning till evening, and you need to have time for home and family matters. And you face the question: “Where will the extra income come from?” After all, you have no free time.

The answer, unfortunately, does not lie on the surface, but I will show it to you.

The fact is that we have new desires and needs in our heads all the time, and as a rule, they are layered on top of each other. Today we may think that we need to go on vacation to the sea, as our acquaintance did. Or buy a new cell phone, as our coworker did. Or change your car because you had trouble starting your car this morning. Or buy new clothes because you felt like updating your image. Or join a fitness program to lose weight for the summer season, and so on.

Just look at how long your list of needs is. And it’s constantly being updated every day. Thanks to the ubiquitous advertising.

So what are we supposed to do?

You need to take a pen right now and write out all your desires on a piece of paper. Make your list of wants and needs. Free your head, let all your desires be on a piece of paper.

Now look at that list. What do you see?

Could this be a typical consumer’s set of wants?

If you try to estimate, they will almost all fall into the first category of complexity and will only require money to realize.

“What does that mean?” – you ask me.

I’ll tell you.

This means that you either think like a typical consumer or you are currently in a state of poverty. You may be in a very difficult financial situation indeed, or you may be in the habit of buying new things in order to feel happier and more important in the eyes of others. Which, in turn, suggests that some of the desires on your list are not yours, but your environment’s.

Of course, all of these options are undesirable, and they are a problem that can and should be fixed.

This chapter I have titled: “The Right View of the Situation.” And it’s for a reason. It is the first thing you must change about yourself. Namely to realize a simple truth: if you were not born into a rich family, you will have to turn on your head to earn a decent living. And the sooner you start, the better it will be for you.

If you are in need of material goods and your income does not allow you to buy them, then you have two ways to solve this problem. The first way is to start earning more, and the second way is to give up the desire to make expensive purchases.

But even after becoming a rich person or being a rich person by birth, you will also constantly want something new, something exotic and unusual. And a large amount of money will only aggravate the situation, as your mind will be intoxicated by your financial situation and will not be able to “soberly” assess the need and expediency of these costs.

And in order not to become a hostage to your “wants”, which you have now indicated in your wish list, you need to think about what exactly will give (bring) this or that thing. What need will it close? What emotions will you experience and how long will they last? Will you become happier?

Now let’s dig deeper: are you ready to spend money on it? Are you willing to work for a month or more to buy this item?

Let’s go further: what happens if you don’t buy this item? How much will your life change? Will you become less happy?

And finally: do you think maybe that money is more important to invest in something else? Which is more important to your life at this time.

Typically, after these thoughts, more than half of the desires dissolve with a heavy exhale and the phrase, “Eh, sometime later…”

Yes, we all have a big wish list. But our main problem is that we don’t filter them. I suggest that we learn to filter all our desires according to a special principle.

The main task of this filter is to determine the degree of importance of the desire for our life. What needs this desire closes. What new opportunities this acquisition opens for us. And what will be its usefulness and efficiency in operation.

Now I propose to divide your desires into groups.

Group 1. The most important wishes. Your present and future depend on their fulfillment. As a rule, these are strategically important decisions. For example: to get married, to create a family, to give birth to a child, to move to another city (or country) to start a new life.

Group 2. Investment desires. These are desires that will potentially improve our life, first of all – materially. For example: to buy real estate, a car in order to get income, to get higher education, to learn a foreign language, to change a profession, etc. Where the results from the work done you will get in the future.

Group 3. Professional needs. These are all the wants and needs that directly affect our professional activity. It may be the need for new tools for various jobs and repairing machinery. Or a new suit for business meetings and negotiations. These are all things that will affect your professional activity and the level of your income.

Group 4. Creativity. Many of us have desires related to the realization of our creative potentials in music, painting or literature. People often save on this. Since it is a hobby for them. But my opinion is that it is better not to save on it. Any of our achievements in creativity ennobles us, making our life more full and rich. Sometimes it is enough to buy a guitar or a canvas with paints to become much happier and thus get a fascinating leisure time and a break from the daily routine.

Group 5. Tourism and travel. Some people have a great desire to visit all the countries. Or to go to the sea every summer. And to realize these goals you need money, time and health. As a rule, no one will not refuse a vacation at sea. But provided that it will be done not on the last money.

But it is not necessary to spend a lot of money, buying vouchers to popular countries. You can travel independently, in those places that are near you. It is not necessary to go to the sea, our nature is very rich and diverse. Real travelers, going on a trip, first of all choose a place where they have not been yet. They are interested in discovering new places, new landscapes, getting acquainted with another culture and local attractions.

Also, winter and wellness tours should not be forgotten. Where there are a lot of beautiful ski slopes, peaks that you can conquer. Not to mention sanatoriums in picturesque places with clean air and medical procedures.

If you think about it, you can travel all year round. And it is great. Every trip is an adventure that can energize you for a long time, discover something new and make new acquaintances.

Group 6. Useless desires. These are those desires that do not fall into any of the above categories and can arise in your head daily and spontaneously. You see something and suddenly you want it. For example, an advertisement on TV about a new phone or a friend bragged about a purchase. It can be a desire to eat in an expensive restaurant or buy a new handbag, even if you have them already full in your closet, but you have not yet had such a one. In general, these are ordinary consumer purchases that we might not make. But during our temporary mental clouding, we spent money on them. And the worst crime of all is if you purchased them on a credit card.

Now that we have a filter, I suggest we categorize all of your desires that you previously wrote down.

Notice how many wishes will gather in the sixth group and how many in the first and third groups. The difference is enormous. I would like to point out that you are not alone. In most cases, all the people in your environment will have a similar picture.

So, what does the filter give us?

First of all, it gives us an opportunity to look at our needs from the outside. It gives you the opportunity to think about the necessity of this or that thing.

Secondly, it gives us a choice. We can and should choose what to spend our resources on. After all, money is limited, and we earn it by spending most of our lives on it. Consequently, we pay for every purchase with time spent at work.

Now that we understand how to work with our desires, how to filter them and determine their importance and value, we can be more discerning in choosing our desires.

Now, based on your wish list, let’s think about the following questions:

– Is the whole point of our lives to buy some things, spend money on entertainment and satisfying our egos? Our ambitions and “wants”.

– Do we live to consume? Is that our main goal?

– Does shopping alone make us happier?

Just think about it. How we are shown through advertisements and movies the image of a happy and successful person. Based on these images, people have a concrete idea that a person without money cannot be happy and successful. He must have an apartment and a car bought with a mortgage. Must necessarily use credit cards and buy food products that are not healthy. Not to mention what images of father and mother are laid down by modern TV series. Where aggression and brute force is an indicator of a person’s toughness, lying and betrayal is an effective way to achieve their goals by stepping on the heads of family and friends. Which, in turn, indicates that “man is a wolf to man”. And as a whole, in the end, everything comes to the fact that a person does not need to think for himself, because everything has already been thought out for him. And this situation is really very sad, because it leads to degradation of whole generations, turning a free-thinking person into a weak-willed consumer of the system. Frankly speaking, I am even afraid to think what awaits mankind in 50 years. After all, during this time, old-school people will pass away, who still remember the times when there was no Internet, how people valued a piece of bread, their word, loyalty and friendship over a hundred dollars. And women then married not for money, but out of their love. But all this is no longer fashionable, now we have a price for everything. And everything can be bought, at first glance, if there were money. But if there’s no money, what then? Think about it.

Yes, money is a key resource in today’s world, but does money itself make you happier? It’s just shredded paper that we exchange for specific goods or services. And it turns out that we don’t even need money itself, but only what we can buy with it.

Considering the fact that in their time people chose the urban way of life and traded their houses with farms and land for small apartments. Choosing their own way of development towards division of labor. And thereby creating the situation in which a person simply needs to work in the city to buy food and provide for his life. However, initially they went to the city for work, because it was there that modern industrialization took place. And people were needed in factories and plants, and at the same time the accompanying enterprises to organize the life of the city.

And we must admit that people went with enthusiasm, it was something new and interesting for them, and there they could realize themselves in a new capacity. And we can safely say that this became their destiny, their new meaning of life. As they felt that they were doing it for the benefit of the development of their homeland and humanity as a whole.

Nowadays, the modern generation does not tend to go to work in factories and plants, and I think you know it very well. Now it is very popular to be an entrepreneur, blogger, actor, singer, mixed martial arts fighter, showman. People want to be popular and rich. Because of this, as a consequence, there are “air merchants” selling training courses that should make any person a millionaire. On which people get into loans, giving the last for the sake of their dreams.

And it’s all on the surface, in every news feed.

Of course, when young people start comparing themselves with their peers from social networks, they may experience internal dissonance, as if they already have everything and I have nothing yet. And they start to want to be like them, doing sometimes crazy things.

But thank God, there are normal people who look at this circus of vanity with a critical eye, realizing that it’s all a show for the sake of some views, likes and the pursuit of fame.

And if we look at it all from the point of view of common sense, we get the following picture.

It is very difficult for a modern person to find motivation to get a job with low wages. And even more so to go to study for a working specialty after school.

Not to mention doctors and teachers who spend five or six years in training to work with below-average salaries. But there are such people.

You probably have never even thought about it, why a person goes to study not for a lawyer, not for a programmer, not for an accountant, but for a specialty that is not popular and low-paid.

– Maybe they just didn’t pass the entrance exams for popular specialties?

– No! That’s not it.

It’s just that these people, unlike others, made their choice not on the basis of future salary, but on the basis of their beliefs. Namely – on the basis of their inner conviction in their destiny in this life.

They realized even then, at school age, that they did not see themselves as anything else but to become a doctor, a painter, a sculptor, a teacher, a machinist, a scientist, a military man, a policeman, a fireman, a builder, a cook, a pilot, and so on.

You know what I mean? That’s what set them apart from everyone else. They knew at an early age what they wanted to be.

And if you ask them years later if they regret having chosen such a profession, they will firmly tell you – no. Even though they will not have expensive apartments and cars, these people will be happy, because they live by doing what they love. And this self-realization brings them great joy and the feeling that they are in their place.

Agree that it is very important when a person finds himself in this world, when he finds his place in it. When he understands what his destiny in this life is. And how he can self-realize himself.

And at the same time, look at those who chased after money, studied for a specialty that he does not like, and in the end, after some time, having worked in this profession, they quit this job and start looking for themselves. And most of them end up working in the trade or service sector. For someone this situation can evolve for the better, and he will become a successful entrepreneur, but most of them will not be able to realize their potential one hundred percent.

The trouble is not even that someone gets higher education for the sake of a diploma, but that they choose their life path by looking at others and putting other people’s opinions above their own. And, as a result, a person experiences a lot of disappointments in their life.

The conclusion of all this is that you should not choose your profession by salary or by the opinion of friends and relatives. You need to choose with your heart and soul. And then you will have more chances to realize your potential.

Destiny

One of the most important tasks, in my opinion, is to find yourself in this life, to find your place. Where you will be needed and in demand for your skills and capabilities. If a person succeeds in doing this, his life will be harmonious and creative. And most importantly, it will be filled with meaning.

It is clear that the more our familiar world changes, the more difficult it is for us to orient ourselves in modern realities. But even in new conditions we have to look for our destiny. Sometimes we do not even need to do anything for this, life makes a choice for us. Or we make this choice unconsciously.

In general, the concept of destiny is a bit like some pre-written program. Or we can say that it is fate. Or to be more precise, that a person is destined by fate itself.

But if you look up the definition of this word to better understand its meaning, you will find that this word has synonyms: purpose, function, mission, role.

It turns out that each person has some personal role to play in this game called life. And then the question naturally arises – how to understand what your role is? What is your mission?

Of course, our work can be our mission, especially if it is highly specialized and connected with other people. Agree that not every person can become a surgeon. Since there must be a predisposition to this profession, a certain mindset and even talent, where are we without it.

And in general, I would single out one attribute that would say that your work is your calling. And this is success, expressed in the recognition of you by the people around you, your achievements and skills. And it does not matter what kind of profession it is, it is only important that you were able to become a professional in it.

But it happens that a person changes his job every year without finding something to his liking, and eventually becomes an entrepreneur. Sometimes such people turn out to be pioneers and innovators who create new trends and become market leaders.

Besides our work, there is also our family life, where we play our role. And this role must be fulfilled with dignity. First we are children, then we become parents. And how we fulfill our responsibilities, how we raise our children, will determine how they will treat their children, not to mention how they will take care of you when you are older.

And overall, one might think that our common purpose is the evolution of humanity, where we pass from ignorance to knowledge and pass the baton to the next generations. While experiencing our unique lives, receiving our challenges and our rewards. And the most important thing from an evolutionary perspective is the experience and knowledge that we can pass on to our children.

And so for many people, especially women, 80% of the time their destiny will be to start a family and raise children. Because without the continuation of the species, all our achievements will become meaningless. For whom will we do our best then? And to whom will we pass everything after our death?

Our purpose, among other things, is expressed in our actions and deeds. And they, in their turn, originate from our intentions. Therefore, it is worthwhile to look for your destiny from your intentions. If your intentions are based on the desire to help people and do good, they will lead you to the path of a decent person, and you will certainly find your place in this world, because those who want to help others are always needed by society, and society always rewards them generously for this. But if your intentions are to satisfy your lowly needs at the expense of others, you will meet people like you, with the same consumer qualities. As they say, “like attracts like”.

And given this fact, I advise you to first examine your intentions from this angle, and perhaps the root of your problems was hiding in your intentions. If you find in them elements of greed, self-interest, envy, revenge or any other negative form of energy, then you should reconsider your intentions. And change the vector of direction of your energy.

After all, it is far from a secret that people feel when they are cheated, used, betrayed or envious. Even if they do not speak about it directly to their face, they always try to keep away from communication with such people. Since all thoughts and intentions of a person are visible to other people, whether he wants it or not. This can be expressed in any little thing, from a sly look to a casually dropped word, which will give away the sincere intentions of a person.

There is also another peculiarity of our interaction with society, from the point of view of a particular individual. Namely in the mirror effect. Where society is a mirror that reflects the whole essence of a person’s intentions and ego.

And if a person is full of negativity, this negativity will only increase, reflecting in people who surround or get in his way. Here the words from the Bible involuntarily come to mind: “And it will be recompensed to everyone according to his faith and according to his deeds”.

If you ask me: “How do I know if I have found my destiny?”

I will say this: once you find your destiny, you will receive a great influx of strength and energy. You will feel joy that will fill your heart and your whole body with its warmth. Your mood will be high, regardless of your surroundings. It is like the feeling of falling in love, which is exhilarating. But unlike it, this feeling doesn’t blind us or make us stupider than we are, on the contrary. You get clarity and understanding in your head about what you need to do and how to do it. You get into your rut, which leads you to success and self-actualization. You are no longer interested in doing other things. You think only about your main business. And that’s your life’s work. And as a consequence, all your desires will be connected with it and its realization.

And of course, you should not forget about your inner voice, if you are on the right path, it will immediately inform you about it. And everything around you will help you. There will be people who will help you at the right time, the right events and resources will turn up. And luck itself will be your faithful companion, you just need to get into your rut of life.

Therefore, you should take the choice of your profession seriously. It is important to choose a profession according to your heart, not according to your salary. No matter what other people tell you. Your choice should be yours