I Made Note of Every “aha” Moment I had Through 2017 - the Worst Year of My Life. Here’s the Abridged Version

End of 2016, I decided to make note of every “aha” moment I experience, in a diary. 2017 was a year of tremendous learning for me (as all years are). But I decided to take it one level up to make sure that I don’t forget the lessons I learnt. By making note of things, it served as a reminder for me to level up. My relations with people improved, my relation with myself improved, I made significant improvement on some other important fronts in my life. All this despite, facing two major personal set backs.

So here is what I learned and started to apply to my life:

1. Happy and sad emotions come and go. Let them.
2. Meditate everyday, even if it is for a mere 10 minutes.
3. Have unwavering faith in God. This world is magic, you have to believe that it is, in order to see it manifest.
4. What we learn is one thing, what we manifest is a subtler version of it. So it’s important to train 200% to see 100% results.
5. Be committed to your goal.
6. It may seem sometimes that people are moving ahead of you. That’s not true, they’re moving ahead in their life. It’s got nothing to do with your life. Acknowledge it and continue relentlessly with your mission.
7. Engage, you’re not fragile.
8. Inaction has a greater consequences than failure.
9. Whether it’s a happy or sad day, whether someone close to you is happy or sad, stay detached. Do your duty and then continue with your mission.
10. Don’t go to people with your emotional problems. They won’t be able to understand and won’t live up to your expectations. Keep your emotions in a private space. Open up to people not so that they make you feel better about your current situation, but only to tell them that you faced such and such a situation, but you handled it.
11. Review your day daily, write down what you’d do differently to make it better tomorrow.
12. Allow your mind to wander only after you’ve made it follow your instructions and made it work hard.
13. Ask yourself every morning, what can I do today to improve my future, then go ahead and do that.
14. There will be times when your brain will want to escape pain through inaction. It will want to give up. Don’t let it. Let it burn, but do the job. Don’t avoid work because you’re hurt.
15. Before undertaking any activity, always remember to place an intent for the activity.
16. Try to wake up as early as possible. In order to avoid grogginess, don’t snooze.
17. Use your time wisely.
18. Seek pleasure and you will discover the shortest path to suffering.
19. Work in haste, make all amends to make sure you reach your destination asap.
20. When you’re in a good mood, work. Or else you will have to work when you actually need to rest. But won’t be able to rest, because you need to work.
21. For every stimulus-don’t suppress, don’t express. Only observe. Respond after pausing. No impulsive actions.
22. In order to expand your thinking ability, do more of delayed gratification activities than instant gratification activities.
23. Always crush difficult tasks at the start of the day, when you do so, all other littler task will seem like a piece of cake.
24. Don’t talk about your goals and what you hold dear. The more you talk about, the more you’ll feel like you already worked on it. Rather, work on it. Talk is cheap, action is everything. Don’t destroy the sanctity of what you hold dear.
25. Work so hard, that you never have to feel scared or guilty.
26. When the end goal seems overwhelming, break it into little tasks you need to accomplish to get there. Relentlessly, keep achieving those goals.
27. People have all kind of opinions. But it still is an opinion and that makes it questionable. Don’t mistake someone’s opinion of you and your decisions as your reality. Even the earth was once said to be flat.
28. You’re not doing anyone a favor by sticking around here. You have 2 choices, 1. sulk and then die or 2.do something spectacular and then die. You decide.
29. Self control is power. And it is the only power trip you should seek.
30. Whenever you need a creative solution to a problem. Quit thinking about the problem and engage yourself in an activity that requires your attention. The mind will then be exercised enough and will itself present you with a solution.
31. Set a timer for every task and don’t deviate from the task during that timed period.
32. Every time you are wounded, you can either be the hunted or the hunter.
33. The more time and more milestones you achieve in your journey to achieving your end goal, the lesser you will be willing to less go of your progress. So keep working hard and you will never want to quit.
34. In the game of life, you lose if you get distracted.
35. Remind yourself, 3 times in a day who you are and what you want from life. And then go ahead and do that.