It may be a cliche, but it’s true: life is hard.
It can also just be incredibly confusing and disorienting.
Here’s a no-nonsense look at what to do if you’re lost on a twisted path and don’t know how to get back on track.
One of the biggest reasons it’s so hard to figure life out is that there are so many competing voices telling you what to do.
It’s easy to lose your own direction when everyone is pointing opposite ways and telling you what you’re supposed to do.
1) You’re too lazy
I don’t personally know if you’re lazy. I know I certainly can be lazy beyond belief.
I also know that laziness is underestimated as a cause of having a disappointing life.
It’s honestly a big cause of it.
Laziness and lethargy can lead to a cycle of extreme disempowerment and low goal setting.
It can be very hard to motivate yourself, but it’s a necessity.
Here’s one video that can help.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TLKxdTmk-zc
2) You depend too much on others
As someone who spent years depending on other people to get my life moving, I know completely what it’s like to do this.
You wait, hope, and wish that other people will come around and help you fulfill your dreams:
Your dreams about love…
Your financial goals…
Your career aspirations…
Your search for meaning…
But it turns out they’re far too busy searching for these things in their own lives to spend all that time on yours!
Of course, you make friends along the way and grow stronger by sharing and collaborating.
But never make the mistake of waiting on someone else to start your life.
You’ll be waiting your whole life for something great to happen and it never will.
3) Your life is disorganized
Canadian psychologist Jordan Peterson famously said that if you don’t know what to do in your life, start by cleaning your room.
What he meant was that starting small and getting organized is a good way to begin to sort out your life.
All too often, it’s so hard for you to get your life together because you are overwhelmed and disorganized with so many different aspects of your life.
You feel stuck and unable to face the many tasks and duties in front of you.
So how can you overcome this feeling of being “stuck in a rut”?
Where to start?
Well, you need more than just willpower, that’s for sure.
I learned about this from Life Journal, created by the highly-successful life coach and teacher Jeanette Brown.
You see, willpower only takes us so far…the key to transforming your life into something you’re passionate and enthusiastic about takes perseverance, a shift in mindset, and effective goal setting.
And while this might sound like a mighty task to undertake, thanks to Jeanette’s guidance, it’s been easier to do than I could have ever imagined.
Click here to learn more about Life Journal.
Now, you may wonder what makes Jeanette’s course different from all the other personal development programs out there.
It all comes down to one thing:
Jeanette isn’t interested in being your life coach.
Instead, she wants YOU to take the reins in creating the life you’ve always dreamt of having.
So if you’re ready to stop dreaming and start living your best life, a life created on your terms, one which fulfills and satisfies you, don’t hesitate to check out Life Journal.
4) You complain too much
I used to be the world’s king of complaining. I still do it far too often.
Complaining is a waste of energy.
It really is. Short of some situations where you need to explain what’s wrong in order to fix or correct a problem, complaining is basically just a form of self-pity.
You are telling friends, family, your partner or the world about what’s not good enough.
And then what?
If you want advice, ask for it. But complaining is a different beast. It’s a never-ending cycle because it thrives on its own disempowering nature.
Picking out something unsatisfactory and calling it loudly before doing your utmost to address it is excellent.
Picking out something unsatisfactory simply to mouth off about it is truly a waste of time and leaves you feeling like sh*t after anyway.
5) You’re too willing to lower your standards
Renowned motivational speaker and coach Tony Robbins teaches that many of us don’t reach our full potential and get our life together for one simple reason:
We’re way too willing to lower our standards.
We always give ourselves a way out, a plan B and a Plan C. We give up too easily and take consolation prizes when things get tough.
In life, love, and career, we train our minds to always have an escape hatch.
Robbins advises the opposite: set goals and leave literally no option for half-assing it.
Succeed or fail completely, with zero room for in between. And if you do fail, try again even harder the next time or adjust your goals.
But never, ever accept half measures. And never be a victim of not having enough resources.
“Resources are never a problem. A lack of resourcefulness is why you failed.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=psGNdh7UPB4
7) You’re living in a dreamland
Having dreams and a goal is vital. But it must be actionable.
If your purpose is simply to be a famous actor or a brilliant, renowned scientist, it won’t do much to keep visualizing this future.
You need to take concrete steps to start making it happen.
You may never get famous or world-renowned, but you’ll certainly improve your skills with practice and grow as a person.
As I said, programs such as Life Journal have been immensely helpful for me in getting a real-life plan and sticking to it.
Don’t leave your life up to chance.
There is so much we can’t control. That’s why the small amount that is in your control (your decisions and concrete actions) is so crucial and powerful.
8) Minimize reaction, maximize action
For far too many of us, life is something that happens to us.
For the rare few who manage to find fulfillment and truly give back to this world, life is something that they happen to.
They act much more than they react.
They adjust their sails when the wind blows and the gale kicks up. But they never turn around and head home to hang their head in shame and defeat, just because somebody said the seas are getting too rough. They act and pursue their goals. They pick themselves up after failure and try twice as hard.
They adjust to circumstances and react, but they always think. They take proactive steps to succeed and reach their goals, instead of just reacting to what life throws at them.
Act more than you react and your life will start coming together in ways you never expected.
9) Know the difference between short, medium, and long
One of the top reasons why it’s so hard for some of us to get our lives together is that we jumble all our goals into one generic or vague pile.
We fail to take concrete and realistic steps, but we also set goals that are completely different time frames and treat them all as one item.
A short-term goal could be to get up tomorrow at 6 a.m.
A medium-term goal may be to lose 20 pounds in the next six months.
A long-term goal may be to become a defense attorney or take a trip through all 50 states and do a photojournal about it that you then sell on Amazon.
Keep your goals organized in the short, medium, and long term.
If you make them all in one big pile it will be very hard to organize and prioritize them.
10) Your love life is a mess
One of the biggest obstacles for many of us to get our lives on track is love, sex, and romance.
As soon as you think you’ve got it figured out, it comes along and smacks you right in the face with a new surprise.
If you’re dealing with frustration in love, the roots often go far deeper than bad luck or not having enough opportunities.
You see, most of our shortcomings in love stem from our own complicated inner relationship with ourselves – how can you fix the external without resolving the internal first?
I learned this from the world-renowned shaman Rudá Iandê, in his incredible free video on Love and Intimacy.
This is about far more than just being “happy with yourself.”
It’s much more specific and a little different than that.
So, if you want to improve the relationships you have with others and solve problems in love, check out the free video here.
You’ll find practical solutions and much more in Rudá’s powerful video, solutions that’ll stay with you for life and bring measurable improvement to your love life.
11) You overthink and overanalyze
I’m a bad one when it comes to this, and it took programs like Life Journal for me to start sorting it out.
I overthink and overanalyze to the point of self-sabotage and obsession.
When you overthink you do one thing: you become paralyzed.
You start cycling through options, conundrums, and possibilities to such an extent that you become fixed in place like a stone gargoyle. Suddenly you’re so fixated on what could happen or would happen or should happen that…
You do nothing.
Or you take action and immediately regret and overanalyze it.
Or you analyze your hesitation to take action and then become depressed about how much you overthink things, beginning to overthink about overthinking. Seriously, shut your brain down a bit.
Go out for a jog or go to a bar and have a pint. Your future self will thank you.
(Just don’t do anything I wouldn’t do at the bar).
12) Your decision-making process is impulsive
Earlier I emphasized the importance of action and not overthinking.
This is absolutely true.
Overthinking is very unhelpful to becoming an effective and powerful person.
However not thinking at all is also a very risky strategy and foolhardy move in most cases.
If you dive into new situations by making decisions with a dice roll, you’re going to have a very dangerous and miserable existence.
Put rational thought into your decision-making process.
It doesn’t mean you have to sit up nights for a month deciding where to move next or whether to pursue a relationship.
But at least put together a pros and cons list or think it over for a few hours.
It’s the least you can do for your future.
13) You want instant results
When I was younger I played piano. I still do, technically, although I haven’t had a chance to play in several years.
While playing as a youngster I had a problem, however. I sat down at the piano and immediately tried to play advanced pieces by Mozart.
I became enraged when I couldn’t do it and began losing motivation. I wanted to play the great stuff, but I didn’t want to do scales or the work to get to it.
Therefore I kept demanding that I be allowed to stop taking piano lessons.
“It’s too hard!” I’d complain, or “My teacher isn’t nice.”
Sure, my teacher was strict and scales can be pretty boring to play over and over. Plus, paying attention to fingers can be a real drag when it comes to piano and you just want to let loose and sound like the beautiful music of the legends.
But that wasn’t the real issue…
The real problem? I wanted instant results and I was acting like a spoiled little b*tch when it didn’t happen right away.
I wish I could say that impulse has totally gone away, but it hasn’t.
Some habits die hard.
14) You let yourself play a role instead of being authentic
Life asks many of us to play various roles. It’s not inauthentic to be different things to different people, but when we fake who we are for corporate and career or relationships reasons, in particular, it’s spiritually numbing.
We become a version of ourselves that’s not even real, acting out the personae of people we see on TV or an idea we had of being attractive or successful.
But what could you be and how much more, if you unleashed the real you and got your life going on a trajectory that’s true to your deepest desires and potential?
I am guessing you’d be a whole lot more than a carbon copy of just another person out there.
15) You don’t pay attention to your finances
Money problems have sunk some of the brightest minds of our generations and many in the past.
Look at a writer like F. Scott Fitzgerald, for example, author of Great Gatsby, Tender is the Night, and many other masterpieces. This brilliant and troubled man had his life made much, much worse due to financial difficulties. True: they were partly caused by his wife and her need to be privately institutionalized for mental illness.
But nonetheless, a quick glance at his biography shows just how much better things would have been if Fitzgerald’s money situation had been more stable. That’s the thing with life:
You can have everything going your way, but if you don’t have many digits in your account you’ll start to have a lot of trouble very quickly with a lot of people, starting with your utility provider and ending with the payments on your car and the rent or mortgage payments you’re required to give.
Getting your money in order and having enough to live on with some savings is vital if you want to get your life together.
16) You think someone’s going to come to save you
Short of metaphysical or spiritual beliefs, nobody’s going to come to save you.
Many of us have a childhood instinct left in the back of our minds. It tells us that in the end everything will be fine and somebody is going to always be there to save us.
New Age teachings like the Law of Attraction further this juvenile belief, teaching people that if they visualize positive and supportive things life will provide them with that.
Nonsense.
You have to start acting from your own position and succeed and fail on your own terms.
Nobody’s coming to bail you out.
Even if you do have parents, a partner, family members, or friends who come to your rescue, you’re ultimately going to get much stronger by approaching life with the kind of mentality Tony Robbins described above.
You need to play to win because nobody’s going to hand you a trophy just out of sympathy, and if they do it’s probably not worth a whole lot.
17) You have too much tolerance for toxic people
A popular theory of self-development has it that you need to cut all toxic people out of your life.
I don’t agree, because I think “toxic” is a very subjective label, and also because I think we can learn and grow a lot from facing up to very disagreeable people. That said, there’s no reason to let somebody walk all over you or take you for a fool.
Negative people can actually be great teachers and be a mirror for our own less positive instincts.
But toxic people who actively manipulate us can be more of a test.
It’s not that you need to lash out and never speak to them again. But you do need to stand up to them. If they try to always borrow money from you and never return it, guilting you for asking, don’t loan them money again – for example.
18) You want to be a master before being an apprentice
There’s a book I read in the past called Lazarillo de Tormes. It was written in 1554 by an anonymous author and is a gem of the picaresque novella genre.
It concerns a young man who goes through many awful stages of his career and life experiences before finally rising his way up and finding something better.
Many of us go through similar experiences.
But the instinct, especially for golden children and others, is sometimes to want to be a master before being an apprentice.
We sit down at the easel and expect our finished product to look like Rembrandt on the first try, instead of ridiculous, which is what it probably looks like! This is the way of life. Even the greatest brilliant minds, artists, and inventors first had to work in normal jobs and do things they sometimes found dull.
Just keep your goal in mind and don’t give up. You’ll get there.
19) You’re taking your physical health for granted
Our bodies are marvelous creations, but they don’t just take care of themselves.
We need to exercise, diet, and have discipline in order to stay in good shape and feel well in our bodies.
One of the biggest reasons why some of us find it so hard to get our lives together is that we simply feel awful inside our own skin.
I don’t even mean that necessarily in an emotional or psychological sense.
I mean we may literally feel sluggish, hate the shape of our body or feel a lack of vital energy and power in our bodies.
This is where working out, breathwork and things like yoga can be absolutely crucial to bettering our situation and beginning to get ourselves in order.
Don’t take your physical health for granted. Appreciate and care for your body!
Get it together, man
I know exactly how it feels to see your life spinning out of control and not know where to even begin to start.
Getting your life together is difficult and confusing, especially when so many factors are out of your control. That’s why it’s crucial to start with the one or two aspects of your life that you can control.
None of us are going to have perfect lives or get everything we want.
But we can empower ourselves, live as our authentic selves and begin to draw closer to those who share our values and mutually support us in our endeavors.
