Principles

Everyone has a personal philosophy they live their life by. But some people design it more consciously than others.

It’s easy to let your childhood, past experiences, and the environment (and society) you grew up in determine your principles to live by. After all, it takes the least effort… and then you have something or someone to blame for things you don’t like in your life.

What’s more: often you’re not even aware of why you take many of your actions. But if that’s how you approach life, you don’t live your own life… Life lives you. Life happens to you. You’re a plaything to the world and others around you.

Here’s the good news: no matter where you are in life right now, you can change this.

You can become aware of the principles (and beliefs) you currently live by (that’s always the first step).

Then you can consciously decide on principles that make you happier, increase your self-esteem… and help you live a more fulfilled life.

It’s possible. But it requires disciplined effort. You’ll need leverage over yourself to make that effort (blog post coming soon).

I’ll write more about my own (failures and successes with this in the future). But, for now, here are some principles I’m now deciding to live by.

Personal principles, written in first person

I’ve written all principles in the first person, as in “I {insert the way I want to act}.” Because they’re principles, not truths or “commandments”.

I want my actions to be informed by them. And I want to be reminded of these principles throughout the day (especially when I’m at risk of digressing from them). And I might change and revise them if life shows me that’s necessary.

Most of all: you might want to act in accordance with different principles. I’m not in the business of commanding anyone. Forcing anything on anyone doesn’t work anyway.

I hope you this inspires you to discover your own principles 🙂

Self-Compassion: I work on understanding myself and the world around me so I can reduce the suffering I inflict on myself and the world around me

Reducing suffering is a principle in general that I’m interested in, because it’s contagious; if I suffer, I’m more likely to make others suffer with me. Conversely, if I suffer less, I tend to inflict less suffering on others.

We inflict a lot of suffering on ourselves by blaming and shaming ourselves, by putting artificial limits on what we’re capable of. Becoming aware of those tendencies, and then working to reduce them, reduces suffering for myself and the people around me (see also: self-awareness).

In other words: self-compassion leads to compassion for others.

I consciously consume and create

I try to think about what I allow to enter my world; the people I interact with. The stories I listen to. The environments I put myself in. The books I read, the shows I watch, the news I hear… We have a choice about what we expose ourselves to.

(This doesn’t mean locking myself up in an echo chamber. It means being careful with what I’m exposed to and the effect it has.)

Conscious creating, then, means allowing myself to process all the sensory input I get and how that interacts with my past experiences, thoughts, emotions… and giving it a way out again. Not holding it all in, not suppressing anything. Actively creating ways of expressing myself. More on conscious creativity here.

I balance several simultaneous projects for skill acquisition, confirmation, expansion/innovation

I like to work on several projects at the same time. It’s part of a 3-step strategy I use to learn and innovate. 

1. Initial Skill Acquisition: I learn a skill/strategy by applying it in a consistent, disciplined way to one project. 
2. Skill Confirmation: Then, I confirm that same skill/strategy by applying it to a related field. A different context, but similar to where I acquired the skill initially. See if it works again, or if it was a lucky shot, or a “one-hit-wonder” situation (survivor bias kicks in with these things: if you dedicate all your time to one project and you’re successful, you can’t know what caused the success until you repeat it). 
   If it works out, great! I can now learn even more nuances of the skill… or use it to innovate.
3. Skill Innovation (or the “Where Else?” Question): Then, I try to come up with an unrelated field or project. One I don’t know much about yet. As I learn to navigate that project and absorb current best practices in that field, I introduce strategies from the previous (unrelated)projects in the mix. The goal is not to copy-paste and implement exact strategies. It’s to let them interact with what’s already there… and through that interaction, new insights, processes and strategies emerge. 

In other words: I apply acquired skills into new situations, let it interact with the existing things… and see what emerges from it. Regardless if it’s a “business” or “personal” project (if you’ve understood what I just described, you’ll know why I don’t make that distinction).

I work on self-awareness

I try to become aware of how I react to events in my environment and to people around me. Instead of instantly reacting a certain way, observing what happens, how it happens, what I feel, what I think.

It helps to discover blind spots, mindset blocks, actions that will be good for me but that I feel strong resistance towards.

Self-awareness is also the first step in breaking bad habits and thought patterns, because they’re often unconscious until you shine a light on them.

Meditation is a good tool for practicing self-awarenes. Morning Pages as well.

I prefer discipline over regret

Worth repeating daily:

I prefer the short-term pain of discipline over the long-term pain of regret.

I first heard a version of this idea from Jim Rohn. He says you always have a choice: either you suffer a bit right now to do something unpleasant (say, eating some vegetables instead of a candy bar). Or you suffer big-time in the long run because of regret (if only I’d have lived more healthily…).

It’s true with many things.

If I say to myself I’m going to work out every day, but I give up after a week… I’m now worse off than before. Because I’m confirming a bad self-image (“I always give up”). I lose trust in myself (all three types of trust). And in 5 years, when my back hurts so much I can’t sit up anymore, I’ll regret not having worked out. (Also important here is the next principle: don’t make promises to yourself you can’t keep 🙂 )

If I don’t make the time to call a friend I haven’t talked to in a long time, even though I’m busy… In a couple of years, I’ll regret ending up alone.

If I don’t follow up with prospective clients… I might regret missing out on really good opportunities.

I don’t make promises I can’t keep (to myself and others)

This is a cornerstone of personal integrity (and trust in myself): if I constantly make outrageous promises to myself and others, and I can never keep them… Then I’ll end up blaming myself, shaming myself, and I’ll lose all my self-esteem and trust in myself. I’m now a “promise-breaker”.

Either I work super hard to try to keep all the promises I make (which is important but can be overwhelming)…

Or I’m more realistic with my promises. To myself and to others. That might mean saying “no”.

I strive to be kind to myself and others around me

Simple. I try to be kind to myself and others. Understand that we all do our best, try to do the right thing. That people who hurt me or others aren’t bad people… They’re taking misguided or misaligned actions. And in the future, they hopefully adjust these actions.

If I do something wrong, that doesn’t make ME a bad person either; I’ve taken misguided actions that I have to adjust (and own up to).

I strive not to beat myself up if something doesn’t work out.

Turns out, being kind to yourself is even harder than being kind to others. Both are a continuous process, not a goal you achieve 🙂

There’s no failure if I gave it my all and learned something

Got this one from Tony Robbins. I don’t fail, I take action and get the desired outcome or not. The only prerequisites:

• I went for it 100%
• I allow myself to learn from it.

No matter the outcome, I go for it 100%. And afterwards, I take time to learn, adjust, (maybe even adjust my definition of a desired outcome; sometimes I thought I desired something but another outcome turns out to be better!)

I constantly expand my ways of perceiving the world

This is one of my key drivers for learning 6 languages. It expands the ways in which I can perceive the world, process it, understand it (and create things).

I’ve lived in several countries and had experiences there in those languages. I’ve had relationships entirely through English or Spanish (Dutch is my mother tongue)… And I’ve felt emotions that I’ve only been able to describe in those languages.

Learning other languages expands your worldview and helps you understand others, far beyond superficial communication purposes. I’m planning on learning even more.

Side note: this is just the “traditional” way of thinking about languages. Body language, music, drawing, painting, moving, or ANY type of action you take counts as a language you use to perceive and interpret the world and express yourself in that world. So as a consequence, I work on developing these too.