Other People Are Not Responsible For Your Happiness

This is the secret to happiness. It sounds as simple as breathing, but letting go is more complex than it seems. What other people think about you doesn’t matter. You can overanalyze all day Sunday over the drunk texts you sent Saturday night, or how embarrassing you looked, and I promise no one spent as much time thinking about you. You can obsess over why he doesn’t like you, why you are not good enough, you can chase approval until you die but that won’t do any good.

The overanalyzing, the need for other people’s approval is just a waste of energy. This need for people to like you will become draining. Ironically, it is this desperate need of being loved that is making you miserable and undesirable.

The approval from other people will not make you as happy as you thought it would. There will always be something with someone. You can never please everyone. Other people are not responsible for your happiness. If the only way you can be happy is if someone loves you back then you are completely reliant on them. You have lost all sense of control. Most importantly, you have lost yourself.

Do Not Let Negative People Change Your Mind, Let Them Motivate You

I love it when people doubt me. I thrive when I am underestimated. Nothing motivates me more than when someone does not think I am good enough. Thank the people in your life who do not support you. Thank the ignorant for not seeing your true worth. Thank the people who were never there for you. They taught you to be better than them.

Instead of letting them bring you down, prove them wrong. Let their doubt push you. Do not drown in self-pity, because they do not believe in you. Use their negativity as power. Be the Elle Woods to their Warner.

I am extremely competitive and nothing in this world makes me happier than proving someone wrong about myself. I do not see their negativity as a setback—I see it as motivation. I see it as a chance to turn the tables on the naysayers. Instead of letting the opinions of others control your self-worth, let them better your self-worth. Change your mindset change your perspective. Take this criticism as a challenge. Remember you are not competing with them. You are competing with yourself.

Set Goals, And Achieve Progression

This is a war between you and last year’s you. Someone once told me in hell you meet the person you could have been. You never want to feel like you have peaked. Your potential is endless. My greatest nightmare is becoming a has-been.

Always look for new ways to progress. If you have mastered your business career, find a way to excel creatively. There is no limit to improvement. Nothing feels better than watching yourself grow.

At the beginning of this year, I started a new tradition with a few friends where we wrote a list of what we wanted to accomplish. With less than 2 months left of 2018 I have almost completed my list.

I highly recommend this cheesy new year method. It was as simple as writing it down, but for some reason putting the pen to paper made it seem much more legitimate. It was like I was signing a contract and I would be committing perjury if I broke this commitment to my list.

I want to also emphasize the point of progression. Progression is not always winning. Sometimes losing is actually more important than winning. Progression is growth and that is what is vital to your success.

Your Love Life Is Not Your Whole Life

A toxic relationship is worse than being single. I know when you are lonely you romanticize the past. You only remember the good, because you have repressed the bad. Going back is so tempting, especially in this day in age of modern dating where every person is replaceable.

Living in the past is warm and it is safe, but it is also a form of regression. It is like rereading the same story over and over again and trying to change the ending. There can be something very romantic about coming back to each other, however, there is a fine line between romance and sadness. Melancholy sometimes only leaves you with misery.

Usually, my advice for loneliness would be to distract yourself. Keeping busy is always the best medicine. Travel, go to the gym, go shopping, get a promotion. The problem is you can do all these things, you can do everything, but it is not enough. It is never enough. You can have it all and still feel so empty. That is the scariest part about success—winning and still feeling nothing. It is terrifying when you do not know what can make you happy anymore.

People look for that happiness in other people rather than themselves.

Sometimes people believe finding the perfect partner can solve all their problems. Your partner is not supposed to magically come in your life to be the hero that saves you.

As The Killers would say, “You sit there in your heartache waiting on some beautiful boy to save you from your old ways.”

Saving someone is not the same as falling in love. You cannot seek answers in other people. That is the fastest way to let someone completely control you. Once they control your happiness it is game over.

Real happiness will come from yourself. From letting go and not caring what people think. Real happiness is allowing yourself to be free.