My vision for 12 months of personal and career development.
This story will be about the challenges I had to face during the beginning of my personal development period and how I managed to overcome them. Starting at my lowest point in emotional and financial stability till the present moment.
2021 was the most difficult year of my life. I had a lot of revelations, hard-to-swallow pills, and a lot of hard work. But most importantly, 2021 was the year in which I realized what road I should walk for a fulfilling life.
The first days of 2021 were the best days of my life. The first months of 2021 were the worst months of my life. Things escalated rapidly in my life, my job was at the highest level of toxicity, my anxiety level was higher than ever. I had to admit that my career is just a bottomless job and that I will never feel appreciated, fulfilled, or financially free if I choose to stay in this company. I failed in 5 job interviews, but with that, I wondered, “Do I really want to work for someone else instead of working for myself?”
I’ve lost someone very special for me, it was the worst depression I had. I remember that my mind developed a self-protective shield against feelings, I still have a very low level of compassion, with this comes a very low level of overall agreeableness, and my neuroticism level also increased. I also know that I had a period of time where my memory was very defective, but I can’t really remember when it started, how bad it was, or when it stopped. I just remember finding myself with blank sections in my timeline, like it was nothing there. I also remember myself being confused all the time, having a poor attention span, and unable to even follow a conversation.
So, my whole life was at its worst point, and in a couple of months guess what, nothing, nothing really cool or miraculous happened, nope, life is not a fairytale, at least not for me. I kept fighting and fighting, and now I’m better, still disappointed in myself, still with some mental trauma, still with depression, but better, and I dream of the day in which I’ll feel good.
Life will always be hard and stressful, but it can also be beautiful and fulfilling at the same time.
Somewhere in July 2021 was my start in trying to change my life, like seriously try to change my life. Since then I’ve learned a lot of things, I’ve learned a lot about finance, personal development, business development, the human mind, and human behavior. I developed a couple of business ideas, I choose three of them to pursue and one to imidietly start working on it. Also, my social network is bigger than ever and this is just the beginning.
Here is what I’ll do every day to improve my life.
At Least 20 Minutes of Meditation Every Day
When I started to learn about meditation I didn’t know much about it, so I didn’t have any misconceptions about meditation. I just started to learn about it and found out later about some common misconceptions. As I see it now, is that most people hear bits and pieces of information and they try to make sense of what they have, ending out with absurd misconceptions about meditation. As an example, I can say that almost everyone knows something about Samadhi, a temporary state of enlightenment. Most people think that meditation is all about that temporary state of enlightenment, and they get frustrated when they don’t achieve it on the first try. In order to achieve Samadhi, first, you need to achieve the state of Dhyana, and even for the state of Dhyana, there has to be a lot of practice.
There are lots of meditation techniques, and probably the one who will help you the most is the hardest for you.
I’ve learned what meditation is, I’ve learned some of its histories, it’s gigantic. I’ve learned a little bit of the neuroscience of meditation, also gigantic. So, I can say that there will be a positive change for everyone who tries it and stays with it. It’ll surely not be easy, it’ll be hard and it’ll take a lot of practice. The state of enlightenment is not easy to reach, but with enough effort, time, and patience, you can truly find yourself, achieve wistfulness, and pace of mind.
Recently I found out that I can practice Vipassanā Meditation somewhere just 300 miles from me. I’ll go there on the first occasion. From what their website says, for 10 days I’ll live the normal life of a monk, 10h of meditation per day, surrounded by nature. No technology of any kind, no distractions, nothing else to do besides meditation. The number one reason why I want to go there is that I’ll be free of distractions. I usually find myself lost in so many distractions and being unable to focus on what's truly important.
I’ll surely do some crazy monk things with my life.
Learn A Third Language
Learning a new language is not only useful but it’s also beneficial for your hippocampus, the part of the brain that has a major role in learning and memory. I chose to learn the german language because I heard that this language is very hard to learn, and I wanted a challenge. I have a 500+ day streak on Duolingo by now. You’ll probably think that I have a strong understanding of the German language by now, but actually, I just know most of the commonly spoken words. That’s my fault because I didn’t follow the rules of learning a new language but I surely don’t regret taking 5 minutes every day for one lesson. This is one of the habits that makes me 1% better every day. Those small habits that we do every day define our future, most people see those small habits as trivial, but actually, they make an exceptionally significant difference.
After a couple of months since I start learning the German language, I promise to myself that I’ll always take a couple of minutes every day to learn a new language. After I master the German language I will probably start Latin or any other language available on Duolingo. I’m not saying that Duolingo is the best way of learning a new language, but is an easy way, good enough for me, at least, for now.
Meanwhile, I got an opportunity to move to Germany, actually a great opportunity for me, so those 500+ day streaks on Duolingo really helped me even tho I’ve learned just the basics. So, I surely encourage everyone to learn a new language. Even tho the knowledge might not help you, exercising every day a new language will evolve your hippocampus, and I see that as an absolute win.
Learn Multiple Coding Languages
With my entrepreneurial mind, I see problems and solutions every day. Just a couple of days ago I had my last super idea of a world-changing app, and yes, if done right, it can really change the world, just like Duolingo, Spotify, Twitter, and many others are already doing. The only thing that stops me from developing such an app is my limited knowledge and experience in creating apps, so, I’m gonna change that.
Some people may think that having a genuinely good idea is enough because you can present that idea to possible investors and in the end, someone will consider your project and will financially support you. Then you can hire freelancers to design and code the app and after the full release just hire a maintenance team and your just making the CEO kind of work. Yeah, you can try that but the truth is that leaders, managers, and executives that don’t have strong knowledge and experience in their field of choice, fail. Numerous studies have shown why certain companies have failed in the first five years. The fact that the leading team had little to no experience in the field was one of the most common causes of failure. One of the examples I remember I’ve read about was an executive who didn’t have a strong enough understanding of the production field and failed unexpectedly after years of hard work.
Starting from scratch and slowly moving upward in any field of work helps you understand the problems and needs of the people who you’ll have to lead later. Just imagine how you’ll feel when you have to work with a boss that doesn’t understand the problems and needs that you have almost daily. Sadly, I don’t have to imagine, my boss is either unable or unwilling to understand our problems and needs. Subjectively understanding this I promise to myself to never be like him.
Learn Science
Science is everywhere, it made the world as it is today, we will be almost nothing without the advantages brought by science. When you have a deep understanding of your environment it makes you feel more in control of yourself. I have strong knowledge and experience in a couple of those fundamental domains that made the world as it is today and I must say that feels useful and valuable to understand how does the world work. I have a lot more to learn and this is another small habit that makes me 1% better every day.
A couple of weeks ago I embraced one of the most common Facebook ads out there.
Brilliant is a learning app designed for almost anyone. That means that the app has a friendly UI which makes it easy to use and learn. They added some visual and interactive information in the learning process which makes it even easier to understand the topic. I saw that the app is still in development because some lectures are locked and displayed with the message “coming soon” but I still consider it as a good start, so, I don’t worry much about the next step in learning science.
No, I don’t have an affiliate link :))
Learn How To Cook
There are numerous studies out there that say that what happens in your body affects the mind. Even depression and a high level of anxiety can be caused or treated by what we eat. So, it will surely be a good idea to understand what we eat.
It’s been more than 3 years since I live alone and I always knew that we are what we eat, but with this objective knowledge I just ignored the fact that I should be careful with what I eat just because I was in my comfort zone. I was usually eating preprocessed foods, a lot of meat, and a lot of sugar. Preprocessed food gives me the feeling of fullness, and sugar gives me a high dopamine reward. This is the addictive comfortable madness, where you are driven by whatever gives you a fast dopamine reward that makes it addictive. Surely, it will be easier to just buy shawarma and eat in the next 5 minutes instead of cooking for 30 minutes. But this short-term way of thinking is actually very damaging in the long run.
Remember the phrase objective knowledge? Well, now I have a subjective understanding of this topic. As I said, I always knew that I am what I eat, but I ignored it till it hurt me. Seeing my body and mind quickly aging is pretty scary. I don’t care about my external appearance, but I do care about my health, so I’ll do something about it.
A couple of weeks ago I started watching one video a day from a youtube channel that is, actually, pretty good. I really found it hard to learn how to cook till I found this channel. Most channels do a pathetic job at teaching someone how to cook. This guy tho is just amazing. He has top-level tips and tricks for every recipe. Those tips and tricks are so fundamental for every cook that most of them just assume that everybody already knows them, that's actually why most people don’t know them. I can write thousands of good words about this guy but maybe you should check it out yourself to see.
The name of the channel is Pro Home Cooks and has now 3,14 million subscribers, that's actually Pi :))
Mental Health Time
I usually find myself doing things that don’t represent me. It’s some kind of hyper-actioning without thinking ending up with unreasonable behavior. Even thinking something wrong usually happens to me, I just look at something or someone, and a bad tough just sparks in my head. This usually happens because I don’t understand enough of my inner unfulfillment. I don’t understand enough of myself.
My first step in better understanding myself was to learn MBTI, the next one was to learn The Big Five. Those two personality tests really helped me. So, it’s worth considering them. The next step is to complete Dr. K’s Guide to mental health.
“Dr. K’s Guide to Mental Health takes you on a journey of self-understanding through a progression of 100+ video chapters written and taught by Alok Kanojia, MD MPH. Inspired by Final Fantasy X’s Sphere Grid, Dr. K designed a choose-your-own-adventure learning experience to help you take control of your mental health using his signature, holistic approach. Dr. K’s Guide to Mental Health includes three modules (Depression, Anxiety, and Meditation)”
I couldn’t write a better description, but I would like to add that Dr.K (Alok Kanojia) is a trained psychiatrist at Harvard Medical School, and with over a decade of training in Eastern medicine. I can say other fancy things about him but I want to rush into saying that he is also a gamer. He was addicted to video games, now he helps others in similar situations. His guide may be too expensive for you, but that’s not a problem because he streams on Twitch live sessions where he talks about a certain topic regarding mental health. Those live sessions are also available on YouTube. I totally recommend it to anyone, this guy is truly amazing.
Books
I often find myself with a couple of free minutes, from time to time, throughout the day, in which I can do something productive. But I rarely find myself doing something useful with that time, so I need to change or add something. The nature of my job doesn’t allow me to carry a book with me all day long and when I get back home I have no motivation to pick up anything and read even tho I have a shelf full of best-selling books.
That shelf is full of unfinished books because from time to time I like to lose my sense of time in a library. Walking among thousands of books, carefully analyzing as many books as I can, patiently searching for that one book that will catch my eyes. After a couple of hours wandering among thousands of books, I usually find at least 3 books that I really want to buy and read. I can’t hold myself from buying them even tho I know that I don’t even have time to read one. So, I buy them, I get home, I read around 50 pages and then I close the book, I put it on my shelf and I never touch it again.
How do I bypass this problem?
A couple of weeks ago I was searching through App Store and I found some kind of blog about the most downloaded learning apps. There is where I found Blinkist.
This app has 15 minutes summaries of best-selling books, they offer the key insights of the chosen book. But the best part is that those summaries can be read or listened to. Of course, this app has pros and cons. A whole book in 15 minutes seems too good to be true, and it is. From those summaries, which they call blinks, you can learn those key insights but a lot of content needs to be cut out. I’ve read through comments and reviews, people are saying that this app can be used either to take a look at what does a book has to offer or to remember what you’ve already read. I Totally agree with those two statements, but I’ll add that is better to have little knowledge than no knowledge. So, if you don’t have the time or motivation to read books, this app might help you, I totally recommend you to try it out.
This app requires a paid subscription in order to access any book you want but the free version offers a preselected book every day. The thing that the book is preselected by the staff is actually a good thing for me because it’s forcing me to try things outside of my comfort zone. Even with all those down sights of this app, I still consider this app that will do that 1% better everyday thing. I use this app with a free subscription, I spend 15 minutes every day learning something new for free, and sometimes I find really good books that I add to my wishlist, so I can buy them later and read the entire book. I see it as a win-win situation.
Final Words
So, I want to do a lot of things with my life this year, I overwhelmed myself with lots of responsibilities in order to maximize my outcomes. I hope that throughout this story I inspired you to follow a healthy and progressive lifestyle.
Thanks for reading,
Andrei Boghiu (Shadow)
Stay Strong!
This article is for informational purposes only, it should not be considered financial, tax, legal, or health advice. Consult a professional before making any major decisions. You are in charge of any of your actions.
