5 Pillars You Can Build That Will Enhance the Quality of Your Life
Mission: Live Life to its Fullest
One of my main goals is to try to get the most out of life.
Sounds vague and faintly idealistic doesn't it?
I came to a sudden realization that not all areas of life are equally important. For instance, being able to binge-watch an entire Season of Friends at 1.5 speed is a skill… but not a really good one. (Friends Fans, please don’t kill me)
In contrast, bicycling would be a relatively more useful skill, with its importance in life increasing and decreasing due to your own external factors. (Such as where you live and whether you can afford a bicycle)
My point is, I have been identifying certain key foundations in life which I should focus my attention and time to have a more fulfilling life.
Requirements
The pillars which I focus on have to satisfy a few requirements for them to be considered.
They have to be
- Useful throughout most, if not entire, of our lives.
- High frequency usage in our everyday lives.
- Positive spillover effects to other areas of our lives
- No negative backlashes, either in the short-term or long term.
- Overall benefits visible in the short-term (6–12 months) and long term (years)
My reasons for focusing on those areas are because I gradually realize how very limited our time and energy are.
With so many things to do, which parts of live should I focus on? What skills should I gain that will help me a lifetime?
Below are the areas and skills I have identified. Some may be obvious and considered general knowledge but I put them in since so many people ignore the holistic benefits of them.
1. Decision-Making Tools.
There will always be problems in life, each requiring a different solution. Therefore, spend some time learning how to make the best decisions under the circumstances.
These tools help you accelerate and improve decision making as well as making you aware of the common pitfalls and cognitive biases in decision making.
Another name for them are mental models and everyone has some they prefer or find more useful than others.
Some of mine are…
- Inversion technique
- Diversification
- Decision with the lowest cost for reversing it
- Asymmetric risk/investment to return
- Allocating time to understand the root of the problem
Imagine if you could make every decision of yours just slightly better. Compounding it, overall, your life might be totally different 10 years from now.
References
Farnam Street by Shane Parrish is the best one I found for mental models and heuristic biases. I’m actually starting from the very first post they made in 2009 and reading upwards. It’s going to take a while…
2. Emotional control/strength
Our emotions have great and obvious indirect effects on our lives.
Think about a time when you were anxious for a long period of time. You couldn't eat, couldn't sleep, were irritable, and basically hated life in general.
Or the time when you lashed out in anger. Saying things you didn't mean in the heat of rage, hurting people, and maybe even ending relationships.
We benefit greatly from emotional control or strength throughout our lives. With less emotional baggage to carry, we can truly focus on what’s important to us.
Learn how the human psyche works and what affects it. Learn your personal triggers that make you lose control. Learn the skills needed to go deal with those negative emotions which you feel most often.
Learn the biology behind what causes our emotions as well. This is where your research and results with health might overlap, hence the positive spillover effects.
Meditation/mindfulness have been of great help to me. By practicing it, I am somehow able to create a buffer between my urges/emotions and my actions.
References
For mindfulness, try the Untethered Soul by Micheal Singer or the popular Calm or Headspace apps.
3. Understanding yourself
You can be strong physically and mentally but have no clue where to move about in life too.
Therefore, I cannot stress the importance of understanding yourself. I advocate it so much I even wrote a post about it here.
Your parents and teachers constantly ask you what do you want to do with your life while the many self-help books/articles out there scream at you to find your passion, to take control of your life, to be more productive.
Yet, you feel…. nothing. You’re lost, like a tiny raft drifting about the ocean. No goals, no passion, no meaning.
What all of them neglected to tell you was, how. How are you going to find out what do you want to do? How to search for meaning? What is your passion?
The answer lies within you, you just need to understand yourself.
Self reflection and meditation are two of the techniques I found to be most useful to understanding yourself. Furthermore, they also have positive spillovers into other aspects such as emotional control.
References
Unfortunately, I have not found books or articles advocating understanding oneself which was why I wrote one myself. Recommendations would be much appreciated
4. Health
This is so obvious, yet so many people still neglect it or out it on a back burner.
I’m sure we can all agree that living while ill or injured will only make life more miserable.
This aspect of life is a tough one to improve. After all, there is just so much information floating out there about health and all that scientific reports which you do not even know are true or false.
Many people give up researching on this due to the immense amount of time and effort it takes to cut away the noise and leave the signal.
But is it worth giving 5 years worth of lifespan or living a pain-free life?
I started small. Basic biology of the human body gives you a great advantage since those are solid facts.
Then only take into account those advice on health which are grounded in science. However, even then, don’t trust them blindly since many scientific results may not be… true.
Use the triangulation method to better verify some sources. Some things are agreed upon by most of the health community like refined sugar being bad for the body.
Then ruthlessly experiment on your body (but always with regards to safety). Everybody is slightly different with some stuff working fro them and some not. Test and see if the effects are positive and viable in the long run.
Disclaimer: Always consult your doctor before making any changes to your lifestyle in concerns to your health. Not everything on the Internet is true no matter how realistic they portray it to be.
References
Eating Academy or this post by Tony Stubblebine here to start.
5. Social Skills
We talk to people. No matter how introverted you are, you have to. Technology has not reached the ability to reduce human connections to 0 and even if it could, it would be terrible as we all need a human touch from time to time.
Hence, social skills come into place. Nowadays, we prefer to envelope ourselves in games, drams series, or movies rather than connecting with humans.
This is the same with health where the self-help industry is saturated with vague and not very helpful advice. However, there are some gems out there besides all that noise so be patient in searching.
Furthermore, start small. Social skills take courage and lots of practice. However, this skill is absolutely crucial in life and it will have a massive spillover to other aspects as well.
References
Despite its terrible name, How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie is the book that changed my life. Some of its advice is so simple that no matter how shy or introverted you are, you can test it out.
In conclusion
The reason I targeted these aspects in life is because I believe they will bring about a holistic effect to my overall well-being.
It doesn't matter if you want to become a musician, an entrepreneur, a programmer, a good parent, or just a better person in general, these universal aspects and areas would still be important to you.
Therefore, I hope that they will help you as well on your path to achieving your dreams and passions.
After all, as the tree needs to build firm roots before reaching for the skies, we need to build solid foundations in our life before chasing our aspirations.
P.S If any readers have their opinions concerning pillars in life, feel free to leave them in the comments along with references! I would love to know how other people think.
Thanks for reading!
