Love the Life You Are Living

I decided to write about the topic that I don’t think people discuss often. Whether we are 23 years old, or 55, it is important to take all the opportunities that life has to offer. How many times have I heard that people didn’t go after their dreams only because they were scared? Life gives us obstacles, ups, and downs only to make a stronger person out of us. In this post, I will focus on the things that we can learn from our mistakes, choices, and opportunities.

Mistakes: We’ve all made mistakes in our life. The best thing that we can do is to learn from them. Sometimes, we won’t believe in something until we experience it. I am a very stubborn person so I had to learn from my own mistakes. My mother always told me that it is better to learn from other people mistakes, but I guess that didn’t work for me. Take the best out of it. Mistakes can and will teach us how to handle things in life, and how to think wisely about our actions.

Happiness: Learn what makes you happy in life and follow it. Don’t let other people decide for you. When you do things that satisfy you, there is no chance that you won’t be happy. Happiness is in small things. I am happy when I am in my bed, reading a book.

Self-Doubt: I’ve doubt myself so many times but I didn’t let that stop me from achieving my goals. You have to believe in yourself. One thing that I’ve learned so far in life is that when you put 100% work in, it will pay off. Work hard and the results will be there. Being positive is one of the key factors for success. If you start your day with negative thoughts, how do you think that day will end? Positive thoughts will bring positive things.

Luck: How many times have we seen people around us doing better than us, and we started wondering are they the lucky ones or we just aren’t working hard enough? I believe that there is a factor of luck in everything, but I also believe that hard work is the only thing that helps us achieve our goals and objectives. We should believe in luck, but we should not rely only on that. Hard work makes the dream work.

Goals: There comes a time in life where you start thinking seriously about your future and your objectives in life. You start thinking about your purpose in this world and you start thinking about if you are going to be one of those people that will leave a mark after they are gone. First step of the process is to decide where you see yourself in few years. Start setting your goals in life, and start keeping track of your progress. When I started doing my internship at a marketing company, they made me write personal goals for every day that I spent at work. First, they made me write down result goals, and then to focus on action goals. It was hard for me to get used to it in the beginning, but after a while, I realized why they made me do it. It is much easier to achieve your goals when you know exactly what they are, and how are you going to achieve them. Start by setting your short-term goals, mid-term goals, and long-term goals. My short-term goal is to close 6 deals next week. My mid-term goal is to finish my internship class by the end of the February. My long-term goal is to graduate from college by the end of the summer. Now that I know what my goals are, I will be setting action goals in order to define and describe how I will achieve them. For example, I will close 6 deals next week by using marketing principles: QTQP-Quality Time with Quality People, CPR- Creating Personal Relationships, and CWA- Closing with Action. This is just my example of how to set goals, and action goals. Get a pen and a paper and start working on your goals and objectives in life.

Time- Management: Since I am working full time, and taking 6 classes, many people have asked me how I manage to efficiently complete all of my tasks. I tell them that it is very easy when you organize your time efficiently. In the beginning of every week, I sit down and write all the things that I need to finish by the end of the week. The next thing is to create time table for all the assignments, and tasks that need to be finished. I will give you an example of how that table may look. Let’s say that you have to study for 3 tests, and that you have to do you math homework.

Day	Subject/Task	Time	Result Time	Completed/Not competed
Monday	Math 1.3	2 hours	1.5 hours	ü
Tuesday	“Me” Time	2 hours	2 hours	ü
Wednesday	Biology Quiz	2 hours	2 hours	ü
Thursday	/	/	/	/
Friday	Sociology- Study	3 hours	3 hours	ü
Saturday	English 1301- Essay	2 hours	1 hour	X
Sunday	Review your Progress	Total: 11 hours	Hours: 9.5 hours	4 tasks completed out of 5

This table will help you to keep track of your progress, and to efficiently plan and organize your day. You can come up with your own table, and try to make it work.

“ME” time: Every person needs some “ME” time. Take a day out of whole week and focus on yourself. Do the things that make you happy. We all need to take care of ourselves, because if we don’t, who will?

Strengths: Find out what are your strengths and take it to your advantage. Learn what works the best for you, and what are you good at. Is it music, math, or opera? It doesn’t matter what it is, because the only thing that matters is whether you will use it, and take the best out of it. Don’t be afraid to shine bright. Knowing my strengths will help me a lot in the future. Also, knowing my weaknesses will to. We need to know what to improve and what to change.  When we use our strengths we are motivated, competent, and satisfied. Now that I know what I’m good at, I will help people to learn what works for them.

Weaknesses: We all have weaknesses, and the best thing that we can do is to become aware of what they are. When you know what your weakness is, you will be able to work on it, and try to make it one of your strengths.

I hope this post helped you guys, because I know what the biggest obstacles were for me in life. Everything is doable if we organize our time, and if we put effort in. For all of you that have any questions on this topic, feel free to ask me, or send you questions to my email address. I am here to help you, and provide you with more tips on how to succeed.  

“The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt.” - SYLVIA PLATH