When I was 22 (and joined the workforce), I decided to focus on myself first.
Of course, whenever we set goals in life, life tests us. And I was no exception.
These were the two most difficult decisions I'd ever had to make in my life, and both directly impacted how I saw my environment and how I framed it in a way that helped me grow.
Hard Choice #1: Engineering your environment by cutting "bad ones"
The environment we live in is what makes us who we are.
Being in an environment that encourages your goals will make achieving them easier, while an environment that discourages them will make it nearly impossible. So after setting my goal to focus on myself and my growth, I thought long and hard about my current environment (including work, activities, and friends). I then tried to assess how they either encouraged or discouraged me from achieving my goals and set my time accordingly.
I focused on the activities that helped me achieve them and cut down on the ones that hindered me.
Spending less time on activities and with people that discouraged my goals was challenging; after all, there was a reason they were in my life. Still, in the end, I chose to immerse myself in environments that assisted me in achieving my goals, making them easier to achieve.
Hard Choice #2: Not dwelling on the past but focusing on the future
We love to focus on the past; it's all we've ever known.
But times are changing, and so are our goals, priorities, and needs. So one day, I decided not to be controlled by my past and actively focus on what was ahead. Judging actions, habits, and even other people not by what they did in the past but by what they are doing now was hard, but it helped me to cut back on some aspects that were not good for me at the time.
It was hard to stop doing these things; after all, I've been doing them my entire life.
But these habits were the ones stopping me from achieving my goals. And by cutting down on them, I had the opportunity to replace them with new habits and friends that helped me achieve my goals. And in the end, it felt freeing, like removing ankle weights to sprint faster than before.
So instead of continuing my past, I tried to actively influence my future.
It was not easy to make these decisions.
But here's the thing:
Being forced to make these choices ultimately got me to where I am today, which is focusing on my goals and my path there. It helped me create an environment that allows me to grow further and move closer to my goal daily.
Oldest comments (0)