Refuse so you can say yes to others

A traffic light has multiple stages

Sometimes we walk or drive to a red traffic light, but right before we arrive there it jumps to green. Initially it seemed negative that we had to wait once again, but in the end you had a pleasant experience. It all matters how you look at things.

As with traffic light in life there are many things that initially look bad, but can have a positive change depending on how you look at it. Going out with friends is fun, but once in a while staying home can be just as much fun. Instead of staying up all night you will have a great night’s sleep and will be full of energy the next morning. You can either proceed to something you had planned or even have extra time to do something you didn’t even account for. Saying no is only as important as you make it. Your friends will not hate you for that one time you can’t go out, if they do they aren’t your friends.

A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty. – Winston Churchill

Saying no is often referred as being a heavy decision that weighs on you as on the person you are saying no to. However it depends on the situation, if you are going out with your friends every weekend, one weekend staying at home wont hurt your friendship. Or you can even change the plans and hold a relaxing night at your place instead of going out to drink untill the early hours. A hangout at your friend’s place can be just as much fun, if not even more for everyone involved. As long as no one expects a huge preparation from the person inviting the others.

The moment you see no as an opportunity to do something else you start to look at it differently. If there is something that doesn’t benefit you allow yourself to say no despite the circumstances. While no you are saying yes to something else. For example if you are going out with some toxic because of your earlier friendship you wont be able to go for a walk with your family. Saying yes because you don’t dare to say no is detrimental to your self and for your enjoyment. Ofcourse there are some unpleasant things that have to be done, but make sure to always weigh the pros and cons before you say yes or no. Put your priorities in place and you will instantly know whether to say yes or no.

Think before you act

Do you allow yourself to think before doing?

As children we all act on our desires before thinking it through. Sometimes it is considered enjoying the moment or living your life if you act without thinking. At some point in your life you will regret doing something in the heat of the moment. For example buying that brand new expensive car while you are still rentinng a place to live in.

When there is something you want to do or purchase it’s smarter to first think about all the benefits and the negative effects it could have on your life. For example leaving your job to start your own business could end up being your best or your worst decision. If you aren’t prepared for your business, have no plan and think that everything will come without work you are making a mistake. If instead of just going for it without much thought you started a side hustle after your hours it’s starting to look more like planning for succes.

Think in the morning. Act in the noon. Eat in the evening. Sleep in the night. -William Blake

There are so many different personalities out there. Some people find it easier than others to think before acting. For everyone there is a benefit in first thinking things through before following your hunch. For example sometimes we feel like our phone is slowing down drastically and we assume that it is going to break down soon. So instead of waiting things out we rush to the shop and buy a new one. While it’s true that your phone may break down soon it may take a couple months more than you would think. This has as an added benefit that if you wait a couple more months there might be a new phone out and/or an older type will have decreased in price.

Other people think that life is too precious to always consider all the options before acting on it. There is something to say for this. If your friends invite you to go for a walk in the weekend you don’t have to count all your options before accepting. Living life spontanuous has it’s benefits. If you wouldn’t accept the offer you will be sitting at home once again, watching television, playing videogames or sleeping in your couch. When you take these decision a bit quicker than you normally would you can also use the time afterwards to reflect on your decision. If it happened to be the wrong decision you can always decide to think it through more next time. If it was the correct decision you know you can sometimes trust your instinct.

Take your time to make important decisions

What would you choose? 

In life we are constantly taking decisions. It’s tempting to be fast on your decisionmaking. Others will appreciate the speed you decide, however it also has some negative effects. You will not be able to calculate all the possible outcomes.

Let’s take a look at the debate about renting a place or buying one on your own. Most people will tell you that buying a house is the smartest financial move, but is it? It’s true that the money you would have “thrown” away will be put towards slowly letting the house become yours. But if you look at the total cost there is so much more costs involved with buying your own house. These are for example closing costs, insurance, taxes, repairs and so on. An immense problem with buying a home is that you tie up your money into bricks. You can’t sell you house if you suddenly want to go live somewhere else, or you would have to sell it way under the market price. Don’t believe everything that you hear and take your time to figure out if something fits you right or not.

Quick decisions are unsafe decisions – Sophocles

A second example of a too hasty decision is hearing about an opportunity of a different job or a collaboration with a friend. If you never thought about starting on your own why would you jump at the first opportunity that comes up? You haven’t thought about all the consequences. Have you build a nice safety net of emergency money? Or are you just jumping straight into the deep without a back-up plan? Are you able to get back into a job quickly if it would fail? Starting a business either with or without someone else isn’t necessarily bad. Doing it without preparation and thinking it through might be a decision that you regret rather soon.

Imagine starting for yourself at the end of 2019 and then being struck with the pandemic. It would be impossible to cover any costs without income and getting back into the job market would have been 10 times harder than normal. Life will benefit the people that are willing to take risks. Don’t confuse this with taking uncalculated risks. For example me writing these articles is a risk. Instead of focussing on improving rapidly on my job I spend my time writing articles. It’s enjoyable and hopefully it helps some people out there.

 

Make wise daily decisions

What route are you taking?

Do you know someone who takes the day as it goes? Those are the people who frequently say not to sweat the small stuff. Life is too hard to be worrying about the small decisions. However tiny changes in your decision making can make a big difference in the bigger picture of your life.

Drinking a glass of water instead of a beer at a party isn’t going to make your life change around. Taking this decision once in a while will positively influence your life. Benefit upon benefit improves your quality of life. The same thing goes for working out. One additional rest day isn’t going to hurt you. But if you plan on working out 3 times a week, and skip one workout every week you are going to notice the difference.

All of us start from zero. We take the right decision and become a hero. – Govinda

Everyone has the same amount of time in a day or a week. But how you fill those hours determine how succesfull you will be. If you take good decision all day you will reap the benefits of them later on. You don’t need to reward yourself with tasty unhealthy foods for every small win you obtain. Delay your gratification and you be rewarded a lot more in the future. Instead of going to drink a lot alcohol, laying in your couch watching TV do something usefull that improves your life.

The more often you go and do some work instead of pleasure the better your freedom will be in the future. Instead of laying in a couch for 4 hours straight binge watching TV spend just 15 mins of learning a language. Then go read a book for 30 minutes and fill the rest of your time watching TV. Making a simple change like this really helps you to improve your capabilities.

Daily decisions influence your future

Determine your future by your current decisions

Every day we take a lot of decisions, your choices will determine how well you do in a couple of years. This goes from taking a glass of water or soda, going to lay in the couch or do a workout, to going out with friends to enjoy yourself or staying home and scrolling on your phone.

All these decisions seem very simple and not important. But if you take a closer look at them you will see how much influence they will have. Take these 3 simple examples and lay them in front of a health specialist. They will all have the same answers on the questions which would be the best for you. Yes, even going out with your friends can be a lot healthier than just sitting at home doing nothing.

But why are these small decisions so important in the long run? One of them wont make a detrimental difference. However if you start to take healthier options more often you will feel immense results in the long run.

I made decisions that I regret, and I took them as learning experiences… I’m human not perfect, like anybody else. – Queen Latifah

Let’s not make your daily choices the pinnacle of success. They are important but not the only factor. Acknowledging that you took a lesser decision is part of the growth that you are going through. Learn from every decision you make and see how it influences your goals you were striving to achieve.

Eventhough the small decisions matter, don’t stress the small stuff. You sometimes have to take a lesser option just to keep your sanity while reaching for your goal. Strictly chosing the ‘best’ option every single time is not the most enjoyable and consistent method to apply.

No matter what option you chose look at all the options and don’t threat your daily activities as just plain unimportant parts of your life. The better you threat your daily choices the better you will become.

 

 

 

 

 

Small decisions can change your future

Take smart decisions

In today’s world a lot of people feel like they have to follow the route that others go. Everyone has social media, why wouldn’t I? Everyone drinks a lot of alcohol, why wouldn’t I? Ofcourse you can always follow others, but you can also choose to take a different route.

The way to reach success is by taking small smart decisions where other people are taking the easy way out. Everyone has similar goals, but not everyone manages to complete them. Dream big and achieve your dreams by not giving up. The time available to you is scarce, so don’t waste your time constantly. Consider your time usage and see what you think is worth your time.

Life’s all about choices. Everyone’s destination is the same; only the paths are different. – Sushmita Sen

Easy choices make a hard life, hard choices make an easy life. Anything worthy of your time is hard to achieve. If it was supposed to be easy then everyone would be doing it right away. When you go for the difficult option you are creating an opportunity to move ahead of the pack. This all sounds great, but it isn’t the big decision that opens your way towards succes. It are the small daily choices that will make the difference.

The point where your current decisions can help you heaps is when you allow delayed gratification. There is no need to be receiving enjoyment right now. Participate in difficult activities at present which will benefit in your future. for example switching over to use a different language to help someone makes it difficult for now. However it will help your future if you manage to improve your second language.

Long ago my weekends were filled with unproductive activities. They were enjoyable and useless. Nowadays taking the harder route might seem less fun at the start. But the further you get into this process the better the rewards in the end will become.

Help people by giving advice

Show your best self by giving advice

Growing up we get advice coming from every corner. Our parents, grandparents, teachers all have in common that they want to give as much advice as possible to help you reach your goals. Unfortunately we don’t realise soon that they are actually helping us and not trying to boss us around. When reaching a certain age we start to appreciate the advice more. For some people it starts when buying our first car. For others this is still a decision that we are capable of making ourselves, without asking for too much help. The moment where everyone appreciates advice is when we start to look for buying a own place.

Wise men don’t need advice, fools won’t take it. – Benjamin Franklin

Buying an appartment or house is the greatest, biggest investment of our entire life. So being at the receiving end of what to look out for while shopping for a place to life is very welcome. If you don’t like to ask people for help at least accept people their help if they offer it. You wont get hurt from action on advice that people have given you. At first it is incredibely difficult to allow people to give you tips. Being able to accept it and act on it is even more difficult. Let this article be a first step towards allowing people to give tips and consider following their advice. Ofcourse it is always the best to think about the advice before acting on them. Be open, but criticial about what people want to teach you. While learning a big concept be open for the idea and follow the thinking pattern of the person explaining it. Once you understand the pattern you can be critical on how the concept is set up and how they came to their conclusion. Think about potential different results and how they can influence the concept.