If You Are Young, Read This (It Can Change Your Life)
The golden opportunity of life...
A wise man learns from others
In my high school days, i was very observant.
I had learned the importance of that from the lessons i had learned in middle school - let’s just say that a lot happened in middle school…
In high school, i was watchful of who i became friends with, how others acted in front of their friends and behind their backs, and the consequences of people’s actions.
During my sophomore year, there was a girl who was very smart and was friends with one of my friends. She would come to school everyday and she had a boyfriend.
One day, she suddenly stopped coming to school.
Then, a little later, her boyfriend stopped coming as well (pause)
She actually didn’t attend the remainder of the school year. At first, i was curious as to why. Something must have happened to her. I initially thought that she had probably changed schools, but as time went on, i completely forgot about her.
It wasn’t until the next school year when she returned that i had remembered she even existed.
What started as a rumor was actually true:
She didn’t come to school because she was pregnant.
I honestly didn’t expect her to be the one to end up pregnant in high school out of all the girls in my school. Like seriously, there were other girls I thought would most likely be in that position, not her.
Her boyfriend shortly returned as well but his life had completely changed. Not only was he now tied with her for the rest of his life, but he was now working a job to provide for his child. He was inconsistent with school, sometimes he would come then out of the blue he would disappear.
One thing that my parents told me growing up is that once you have a kid, your life won’t be the same anymore. Not that it will be worse (although sadly some do think that way) but that you now have to care for another life other than your own. It’s not all about you anymore. You now have a responsibility.
This was basically a warning to me to make sure i don’t make stupid decisions at any early age that i can never take back.
The choices you make now will define your future
There are many ways to go about your teens and 20s, but only some will put you towards the path you desire.
Your 30s are determined by what you do when you're in your late teens and 20s.
During our early years, our brains are developing. Who influences us and the decisions we make, play a major role in how our future shapes up.
The brain doesn’t fully develop until you’re 25. As an example, If you are 13, with enough influence, somebody can convince you that robbing and stealing is good. As an adult though, if you were taught growing up that robbing and stealing isn't good, it will be much harder for someone or a group of people to convince you that it’s good.
When our minds is still young and developing, it is critical that we take care of it and be careful of what we allow in our life because if not, you can end up in your 30s with a life you despise full of habits that you find difficult breaking that you wish you had never developed in the first place…
For instance, the vast majority of men who watch porn started that habit in their pre-teens.
The other day, i was watching a YouTube video of a guy walking around a neighborhood where it’s full of drug addicts. One of the drug addicts he interviewed was in his early 20s (he did not look like it) and he said that he started doing drugs in his teens. Now. he find it extremely difficult to stop.
Of course he’ll find it difficult to stop, after years of doing drugs, it hard to quit all of a sudden.
Imagine how different his life would’ve looked if he had never started doing drugs in his teens? He would be in a VERY different position in life now.
One of the major causes of depression is feeling lost in life. When you’re lost in life, you do whatever to numb the feeling (I’ve been there…) This is where drugs, porn, excessive video games, partying, and more comes into play.
What you start doing in your teens going into your 20s will determine how your life looks like in your 30s and so on.
What you decide to do on a daily basis depends on the future you are looking forward to creating. If you have no future to look forward to, you’ll be more prone to making bad decisions that will affect you long-term.
This is why so many people regret college in their 30s and 40s. They went without a goal or vision in mind, got hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt, and now work a job that has nothing to do with what they studied. If they had an idea of what they wanted their future to look like, instead of drifting and following their teachers and parents advice, they would’ve thought it through before going.
If you constantly make bad decisions young, a heavy price at an older age awaits you that you might not want to but have to pay.
Knowing your path makes life more easier and fulfilling
Being very watchful has helped me a lot in my life.
They say that a smart man learns from his mistakes but a wise man learns from the mistakes of others.
I would say the one thing missing in most young people’s lives that hurts them long-term is not having a sense of direction.
When you don’t know what you want your future to look like yet, it’s good to start by knowing what you DON’T want it to look like.
I wouldn’t say i had a very clear sense of direction in my teens but i had an idea of what i didn’t want which helps just as much. It helped me avoid costly mistakes like going to college and carrying hundreds of thousands in debt because i was told that’s what i NEEDED to do.
According to the federal reserve of New York, 27% of college grads work in the career they majored in. Meaning most people end up working jobs that they didn’t even study to work in - they took on debt for no reason.
Now that i have a direction i am going towards, i make better decisions that will enhance my experience in life.
If people were to have this sense of direction coming out of school, they wouldn’t be as confused or lost as they are now. They wouldn’t cultivate bad habits that then become difficult to break.
Having a sense of direction really fixes a lot of problems in most people’s lives, problems like:
Feeling lost
Feeling depressed
Having poor health
Having poor finances
Being lonely
Living an unhappy life
Reason being because your brain then works like a heat-seeking missile. It will have a destination to go towards and will correct course if it finds itself slipping. You’ll have something to look forward to which will help you make better decisions.
If you the direction you are heading towards involves becoming financially free, you won’t spend the money you earned in the weekdays on the weekends.
If the direction you are heading towards involves being ripped, you won’t eat fast food every week and lay on the couch avoiding exercise.
When you have a sense of direction, you have a sense of purpose. Your days are more purposeful and whatever suffering you experience in the present moment become worthy because of the future you look forward to building.
The pain of lifting heavy weights and going to failure becomes meaningful.
Waking up early when you’re tired becomes meaningful.
Putting in time to learn new skills becomes meaningful. becomesHaving a sense of direction leads to living a fulfilling life.
How I would make the most out of your youth
Finding direction in life is on almost every young persons mind.
I’ve found direction in my life and it has drastically made my life more better. I look forward to my days, building my future, and it has given my daily life meaning.
But finding direction is not the only thing, it lays the foundation for the rest that will impact your life immensely. If you get these right, you will make the most out of your youth and reap the rewards in the years to come.
1) Create a vision for your future
This first step is probably the most important because without it, nothing else will truly fall into place. It sets the foundation for everything you’ll achieve in the coming years. Without this, you’ll drift in life and end up somewhere you never desired to be leaving you miserable.
There are 2 types of people:
One goes wherever the wind blows, there is a lot of spontaneity because you never know where life can take you, but this person risks creating a life they never intended to live. They end up reaching their 40s and 50s regretting not putting much thought into their future.
Then there is the second person who thinks of his future and creates a vision of what he would like it to be. He writes down how he wants to be health-wise, how he wants to be set up financially, how connected he wants to be with his relationships in life, and how fulfilled he wants to be. He works towards this vision which gives him direction and helps him make better decisions that his future self will be glad he made. He eventually creates the life he desired leaving him living a happy fulfilled life with little to no regrets.
As I mentioned, 27% of college grads don’t work in a career they majored in. That’s mostly because they didn’t have a clear vision of what they wanted their future to look like.
Seneca once said:
To the person who does not know where he wants to go, there is no favorable wind.
So the first step is to create an emotionally-connected vision for your future.
The way i do this is by whipping out a notebook and writing down how i would like my life to look like 5-10 years from now. This doesn’t have to be perfect, the goal is to help us get started on a path towards an ideal version of ourselves and our future and as we progress, we can begin to edit it if needed.
Then i write down my vision for the next 2-3 years.
After that, i write down what goals i can accomplish in the next 3 months to make progress towards that vision(see how i am breaking it down? i am lowering the overwhelming feeling of not knowing where to start).
When writing this vision, make sure you are emotionally connected to it. In other words, make sure it’s truly meaningful to you. Don’t write someone else’s vision, write YOUR vision. Only when you are emotionally connected to this future will you be committed to making it a reality.
To make sure that you stay committed to this vision and not only interested, make sure you have the 4 ingredients to commitment:
After i am done with that, i create a vision board.
To create a vision board, you compile 5-8 images of your vision.
So if part of your vision is to have a six pack, grab an image of six pack abs. If part of your vision is to have a certain car, grab an image of that car.
Then put together this collage of images and print it and either buy a board to paste it on or just simply past it on your wall. Then on your devices, place this vision board as your wallpaper. On your home screen and laptop screen etc.
The point of this is to see this vision everyday as this is the life you are heading towards. With a strong vision, it can make you unstoppable by pulling you towards it and eliminating anything that gets in the way of you accomplishing it.
2) Replace your bad habits
This next one is just as important but many people overlook it or try to balance it by doing the opposite too but it will not work long-term. Not doing this step won’t allow you to make your vision a reality.
You see, anybody can create a vision, goals, and a plan to achieve it. But most people do this at the beginning of every year, and guess what, according to the University of Scranton, 92% of people fail to achieve their New Years resolution.
You want to create a vision but don’t want leave it on a shelf to collect dust only to revisit it later in the year with regret of wasted time. You want to put in the work to get closer to it and part of that work is getting rid of the things that are chaining you and keeping you trapped from making forward movement.
The chains of habit are too weak to be felt until they are too strong to be broken.
The next step is to replace your bad habits.
I used to have a lot of bad habits but the major ones were porn, scrolling mindlessly for hours, playing video games until my eyes hurt, and binge-watching Netflix. So instead of getting rid of them, i put good habits to take their place, that way i still received the dopamine my brain wanted but this time it was real dopamine.
I began practicing habits like:
Journaling
Meditating
Socializing
Time blocking
Reading books
Waking up early
Learning about different skills
Exercise consistently (with a goal in mind)
and more
The younger you are the bigger the advantage you have which is time. So you can start practicing good habits now to have a major payoff later.
I talked more about this in my previous newsletter where i go deep on how to break your bad habits, check it out here if you haven’t already.
3) Be mindful of the people you surround yourself with
Now if you don’t get this next one right, it will ruin the entire process altogether. I would say this is one of the most important things you need to be mindful of in your life because of how impactful it is.
You can create the vision of your future, break your bad habits and create better ones, but if you are with a crowd of people who don’t have a vision for their life (a positive one at least) and continue to practice bad habits, you’ll be influenced by them to continue to live a similar lifestyle and ruin your attitude and momentum towards your future.
A person who recently quit drugs can’t continue to hang with those who still do them because soon enough they’ll fall right back to their old self.
Jim Rohn said
You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.
The next thing you must do is be mindful of the people you spend time with.
Closely evaluate the lives of your closest friends. See if they are heading towards a similar future or are working towards building a better future for themselves.
Is their attitude a growth mindset or a victim mentality?
If they are only negative then you need to slowly separate yourself from them - it’s a requirement. If not. you’ll be affected in a negative way because people are always influencing you.
The amount of lives that have been ruined because of bad associations is insane.
Change your associates and friends and everything about your life will change.
4) Fail a lot
This final tip is so feared and avoided but is the only way you will ever achieve your vision and goals.
Again, there are 2 types of people:
One thinks failure is taking a loss, making a mistake, or not reaching the goal at the time you intended to. This person never really tries or commits because he fears making a mistake or losing. He suffers a lot from analysis paralysis and stays stuck in the same spot.
The second person thinks failure is not trying. So he tries, experiments, makes mistakes, but corrects course and moves forward, eventually accomplishing his goals.
When Thomas Edison would fail multiple times while working on the lightbulb, he would say
“I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work.”
This final tip is to fail, a lot.
Obviously the mission isn’t to fail but to succeed, but accept that you will fail a lot, that you will make mistakes. This will allow you to take action.
When you create your plan, take calculated risks, and just go.
When you fail, analyze why. Break down what went wrong, adjust your approach, and try again.
Each failure teaches you something new, making every step forward more effective.
All of these steps will help you take full advantage of your youth.
The decisions you make now will shape how your future looks like.
A wise person not only learns from the mistakes of others but he also is intentional, disciplined, and driven about his future.
It doesn’t matter where you are right now, but where you intend to be.
The effort you put in now won’t go unnoticed, it never has for anyone. Your future is being dictated by what you do right after reading this newsletter, shape it how you envision it to be.
Have a great week!
📈 1 Insight from this week
Be present at all times
Yesterday, I was doing deep work, working on my goals.
I was laser focused.
I had not realized how much time had gone by.
I was close to 7pm. I needed to go eat. I closed my laptop and went to eat together with my family.
For the next 2 hours, all I did was be present. I wasn’t thinking about anything other than being there with my family. We had great conversations and I also didn’t realize 2 hours had gone by.
It was refreshing.
After spending most of my day working on my goals, it was good to do something that takes my mind off of it for a while, letting my brain recharge.
For me, a great way to do it is to spend time with my family and be present.
A lot of people think they need a whole weekend to rest, but what they really need is an hour or two where they are ONLY resting.
When I was with my family, I wasn’t checking my phone or watching tv.
I was present with them.
When I was working, I wasn’t checking my phone here and there or watching tv in the background, I was present working.
Whatever you do, be present to take full advantage of it.
An hour or two of rest being present is better than a day of “rest” where you aren’t present.
📚 Books I am reading right now
“Be Your Future Self Now” - By Dr. Benjamin Hardy
So far a really good book.
The first part goes through the “7 threats to your future self” and I am now in the “7 truths about your future self”.
💭 Quote of the week:
“Do something today that your future self will thank you for” - Unknown
Thanks for reading my newsletter! I hope you gained value from this.