In the movie Dead Poet’s Society, John Keating (Robin Williams) said, “Oh, to struggle against great odds. To meet enemies undaunted…
Show me the heart unfettered by foolish dreams, and I’ll show you a happy man.”
Here are some of the oldest, most useful life lessons I know.
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Stop Being a Perfectionist
The goal of life isn’t to be perfect. It’s to be useful and do something meaningful for yourself and others with the time you have left.
Most of my life has been spent trying to overcome perfectionism.
As you get older, whether it’s in business or relationships or raising your dog (or kids), there’s nothing more detrimental to progress than perfectionism.
No dream or goal happens in a perfect vacuum. Even NASA blows up rockets. Even LeBron makes turnovers. Even Donald Trump and Joe Biden forget to put on their makeup.
Just start the thing you want to do. Be the thing you want to be. This imperfect American life hides how everyone is cobbling it together the best they can (even if they look like they got it perfect).
Just start imperfectly, keep trying day after day, and you’ll figure it out.
Make time to dream.
As you get older, you forget to dream about reinvigorated mountain tops to climb (for fun or ambition). As a kid, I constantly dreamed about playing pro sports and then worked backward on my daily process to achieve that dream.
This year, let’s pinky swear to make more time to dream and work backward to get where we want to go. Let’s dream late at night, let’s mindmap at sunrise, or sneak away for some visualization on a lunchtime potty break.
Without dreams, there’s no foundation for making a better life; without a blueprint, there will be no tangible plan for taking small steps toward achieving your dream.
Maybe your dreams are covering your monthly expenses with passive income (after taxes), making a fun side hustle work, traveling the world, or hitting .300 in your slow-pitch softball league.
To be interesting, you have first to choose to live an interesting life.
Think about who you want to be in 10–20 years. What will you be doing that makes you smile? What kind of life will you be living? Will you be playing chess in Central Park? Will you go all in on your startup?
Now write out ten small things you can do this month to help you start walking in the direction of your dreams.
Don’t quit on the dip.
When you start walking towards your dreams, it takes behavior change.
As you age, behavior changes are like pulling cavities with a shoestring: it hurts like hell.
And when you try something new, you’ll usually want to quit about one month to six months in.
When the dream doesn’t match the reality you feel, which is true of almost anything, you’ll have to choose either to grow or shrink. This is the most important moment in your personal growth.
This is the inflection point.
At this point, if dreams were easy, anyone could do them.
If anyone could be fit, everyone would be fit. If anyone could build a side hustle, everyone would have a side hustle.
You get the gist.
Any untried relationship, new career, recent fitness regime, or even being a pro athlete had its tough moments. But getting through this frustrating inflection point will earn you the dream, so don’t quit.
If you stick with it, your process will improve, and you’ll get more efficient at the painful stuff you don’t like. Your ability to grow through challenges in time will make the painful behavior change less harsh the more you do it.
The best life lessons have been around since Seneca, Aurelius, and Socrates, yet we writers regurgitate them in new ways to make a buck.
But the truth is, if you start small, execute one step of your plan today, focus on being useful and meaningful, and don’t live in the abyss between reality and dreams, you’ll make something special.
Choose imperfection, get through the inflection point, and you’ll start believing in yourself.
Hopefully, these life lessons will pay you life dividends a year or two from now. Good luck out there.
Leave your most important life lessons as you’ve gotten older, and follow me for more of my world of personal growth, wealth, and wisdom.
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This post was previously published on medium.com.
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