Lessons From The Last Decade

Welcome to the New Decade! It’s been funny thinking about the passage of 10 years and what that really means. For me, it means there have been a lot of lessons. Through some personal experiences and excavation, I’d like to believe that I am not just 10 years older, but 10 years better. There have been lots of opportunities for learning and I’m grateful for every one of them, even if they were very hard and painful because now I have this list to share. It is by no means exhaustive, but it’s honestly more than I thought I would write. I’ll expound on some points more in later posts throughout the year, but this is essentially my decade in review. These are not listed in any particular order. Enjoy and be edified!

1. Jesus is consistent and consistency matters. I’ve been up, down, left and right in my faith since becoming a believer in Christ. It’s been a wild ride and it’s not over yet.
2. Journaling helps make thoughts clear and the intangible tangible.
3. Anything is possible with a plan and action — my algebra teacher (Hi, Mr. Dollard!) would say, “A goal without a plan is a wish,” later I added “A plan without action is a just a list.”
4. Follow up and follow through.
5. THERAPY — the brain does things on its own because it thinks it’s keeping you safe so your cognition and your automation may not be in sync.
6. Deal with problems quickly.
7. Know who can and who cannot understand and be cool with that.
8. Listen more than you speak and don’t be mad, just figure it out.
9. There is no action without reason even if the actor doesn’t know why they are doing it.
10. Rest is productive.
11. The hustle requires healing.
12. Healing requires some hustle.
13. LOVE OTHER PEOPLE, I didn’t say you have to like them.
14. You may not be the reason, but for anything affecting your life, you are still responsible — whether it’s your mental health, your mommy or daddy issues, your car breaking down making you late or your computer breaking making it impossible to do the work. Sometimes you will have to keep pushing and fix things, sometimes you have to be responsible enough to let it go because you can’t handle it at the moment. That’s ok.
15. You can quit, and say no. If something does not serve you or even if your participation is not serving someone else in the situation, you don’t have to be there.
16. Make lists, keep calendars, set alarms, use timers.
17. Don’t just digest information, apply it.
18. Focus on what you take matters to you, the impact you want to make, what belongs to you, your people, your work. Focus! Looking around will slow down your pace.
19. Things. Take. Time.
20. SOFT SKILLS MATTER.
21. Success is in predictability and repetition.
22. Staaaaaaaay Present — today there is something to do. Tomorrow there is something to do, in the past, there is something you didn’t do. All you can really do is worry about the now.
23. The quality of your relationships depends on the quality of your communication.
24. It takes two to make a relationship work — any relationship: work, family, friends, romance.
25. You can advise, but people will make their own decisions.
26. Ask people if they want you to listen or help them solve.
27. Set standards for work and life.
28. Don’t have expectations for other people though.
29. You have to define success for yourself
30. At any given time, you are either a producer or a consumer; spend your time wisely.
31. Time keeps moving with, you should too. It’s going to happen with or without you.
32. Celebrate the small victories.
33. Feel the fear and do it anyway.
34. For what you want, you’ll either invest time or money.
35. Be yourself — God made you you (fearfully and wonderfully) and people will either accept or reject that.
36. Everyone needs personal development. We have a bunch of amazing potential but if we do not know how to use or properly channel that, it’s useless or will probably misappropriate. We’re not fully baked and never really will be.
37. Most things people do to you are about their own feelings about themselves and have ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO DO WITH YOU.
38. Don’t assume that people know and understand things about you — that you like or dislike something, your feelings, needs or anything. Don’t assume, if they are asking and you know they are in your corner, let them know.
39. People who are interested show up and ask questions.
40. Keep creating. Not everything will be a hit, that’ll just be practice, but something will be.
41. Faith and hope change your entire outlook on life. Nothing is impossible if you believe it’s not.
42. Even family needs to learn how to communicate with one another. It takes a lot of listening.
43. Actively listening more than you speak is probably one of the best things you can do.
44. Giving is great, but there has to be a limit. You will be depleted if you give everything away.
45. Everything in moderation.

Woo! I know there are more things, but I’m sure by the time you’ve reached this point, if you’ve even made it this far, you’ve probably ingested a lot of information. I hope this was helpful and if you’d like to have more helpful stuff and freebies for Life and Business,

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