Tag: Young Adults

Why do some people achieve so much, while most of us struggle just to keep our heads above water? The answer is complicated and has many parts. One of them is mindset, and in particular the difference between thinking like an amateur and thinking like a professional. Most of us are amateurs. Here is what separates the two.

How they work

• Amateurs stop once they reach something. Professionals know that the first success is only the start.
• Amateurs aim at a target. Professionals build a routine that gets them there.
• Amateurs turn up when the mood strikes. Professionals turn up daily.
• Amateurs race ahead. Professionals last the distance.

How they see themselves

• Amateurs believe they are good at everything. Professionals know where their real skills begin and end.
• Amateurs hear feedback and coaching as an attack on who they are. Professionals know their weak spots and actively look for thoughtful criticism.
• Amateurs spend their energy patching their weaknesses. Professionals build on their strengths and surround themselves with people who cover their gaps.
• Amateurs guard knowledge as power. Professionals pass on what they have learned.

How they think and decide

• Amateurs want to be right. Professionals want the best result.
• Amateurs stop at the obvious first step of thinking. Professionals ask what happens next, and after that.
• Amateurs run with whatever idea arrives first. Professionals know the opening idea is seldom the strongest.
• Amateurs hold views that nothing could ever prove wrong. Professionals do not.
• Amateurs see things as all or nothing. Professionals weigh the odds.

How they handle results

• Amateurs decide in groups, so that no one person is to blame if things go wrong. Professionals decide as individuals and own the decision.
• Amateurs blame others. Professionals accept responsibility.

Nobody switches over in a day. But each line above is a small habit you can choose, and every one you adopt moves you a step from amateur towards professional.

A psychologist was walking around a room, teaching an audience how to manage stress. When she lifted a glass of water, everyone assumed they knew what was coming: the old question of whether the glass was half empty or half full.

Instead, smiling, she held it up and asked how much it weighed.

People called out guesses, anywhere from 100 to 250 millilitres.

The answer no one expected

“The actual weight does not matter,” she said. “What matters is how long I hold it. If I hold it for a minute, there is no problem. If I hold it for an hour, my arm will ache. If I hold it for a whole day, my arm will go numb and I will not be able to move it. Whichever it is, the glass weighs no more than it did. But the longer I hold it, the heavier it feels.”

Our worries work the same way

Our stresses and worries behave just like that glass. Dwell on them briefly, and nothing much happens. Think about them a little longer, and they begin to hurt. Think about them all day, and you feel paralysed, unable to do anything at all.

The problem is rarely the worry itself. It is how long we keep holding it.

Set it down

So it matters to let your stresses go. Lay your burdens aside as early in the evening as you can manage. Do not carry them through the evening and into the night, where they will rob you of rest and greet you again in the morning, heavier than before.

Whatever you are holding today, remember to put the glass down.

If you often overthink a problem, or find yourself caught in anxious loops, here is some good news. You may also have an unusually strong capacity for creativity.

Worry has a purpose

Most people connect overthinking with anxiety and low mood. Yet it can also be useful. Think about it this way: many of humanity’s breakthroughs came about because we worried. We worried that we would go hungry, or that a rival group would take what was ours. A vivid imagination helped our ancestors survive against nature and wild animals, and worriers have imagination in abundance.

The key difference between overthinkers and everyone else is imagination. The path to survival and progress runs somewhere in the space between daydreams and what is actually in front of us. Recent research suggests that creative genius and anxiety are more closely related than we might expect.

What the research found

A team at King’s College London observed that, in worriers, the brain region that registers danger was more active than usual. In other words, they tip into alarm faster than most people. Because of this, worriers also had especially active imaginations, which made those feelings of threat stronger still. A busy imagination, a vital trait for creative minds, and intense worry seem to feed each other in an endless cycle of torment and ingenuity.

Why the world needs worriers

It makes sense. No problem gets solved until someone has spent long hours turning it over. Climbing right inside a problem is what gives the sudden flash of insight a chance to strike. Had nobody worried about getting around faster, the wheel might never have been invented. Had Alexander Fleming not been concerned about bacterial infection, we might still be living without antibiotics.

We also owe a rich cultural life, poetry, music, art and theatre, to vivid imaginations. Without them, human experience would be far poorer. Many famous problem solvers and artists were worriers, and that restlessness can even push people towards more honest lives. Nobody creates from complete comfort.

So, the next time you find yourself deep in thought and worrying, remember that it has a creative side too. Who knows? One day your worrying may help change the world.

Most of us understand, without being told, what it means to be real. People who are real do not hide behind a mask to protect themselves from how others might see them. They do not put on a false self to look more perfect, more powerful or more independent than they are.

What being real looks like

Real people show themselves as they truly are: the good parts, and also the parts most of us would rather keep hidden. Those lucky enough to know them get to meet the whole person.

Why it is hard

Being real is not easy in a culture that keeps showing us pictures of physical and material perfection. As a result, we all want to look younger, slimmer, richer and more successful. The world rewards us when we play this part well. But people who are real remind us that, inside, the act is costing us something.

Every time we feel we must be bigger, better or more exciting than who we are, we send ourselves a quiet message: you are not enough.

The gift of real people

Meanwhile, people who are not trying to be more than they are walk into a room and bring ease, humour and warmth with them. They admit to their wrinkles and laugh at their own odd habits without putting themselves down.

People like this invite us to lower our guard and relax, even for a moment, into who we really are. Around them, we feel safe enough to take off our masks and taste the freedom of no longer hiding behind a wall.

Learning to do it

Those of us who grew up with a parent who was real may find being genuine comes more naturally. The rest of us may need to work a little harder to drop our pretences and share the beauty and humour of who we really are. The reward for that risk is worth it. As we become real, we attract and inspire others, and we give them permission to be real too.

Most of us know we need to keep improving ourselves. Yet we tend to focus on the outside: getting fitter, or picking up skills that make us stronger leaders or sharper professionals. The deeper work happens within.

Why it matters

The only certainty in life is change. Situations arise, good and bad, and each one demands a response. How we respond, especially to hard times, depends on our character and resolve. It depends on our inner strength.

It can be built

Like many habits, inner strength can be developed. It does not matter if someone is seen as weak or shy. They can still grow the inner strength needed to face any of life’s challenges. It is not easy, though.

Inner strength, resilience, grit, whatever we call it, has to be forged, and the only way to forge it is through deliberate effort. That is why challenges should be seen as opportunities, because that is exactly what they are. Without challenges, there is no inner strength. When we give in without a fight, we grow weaker. When we resolve to overcome an obstacle, we grow stronger. It is simple to understand and hard to do.

Two things to remember

First, nobody is strong all of the time. Second, failure along the way is certain. What counts is how you respond to it. Get back up and resolve to do better. There is only one real roadblock to inner strength, and that is complacency.

Strength needs energy

Growing stronger inside does not mean racing around until you are drained. You need energy to do it. If you are facing difficulties with money, family or work, find a way to recharge. A run, some quiet meditation, a long bath or a good book: whatever restores you, do it.

When we set priorities, choose our battles wisely and take time to recharge, we are in a far better position to handle whatever comes. What we cannot do is build inner strength out of excuses.

You are far more capable of keeping going than you may believe. Build good habits, and you will prove it to yourself. In the end, the two things you most need to carry you through life are hope and determination. These habits put them to work.

Act, not only think

In your heart, you usually know what needs to be done and how to do it. Acting on that knowledge is self-respect at its highest. So hold your head up, and make acting on what you know a habit.

Keep your drive inside you

If your motivation lives outside you, in praise, rewards or other people’s approval, you will lose your way when those disappear. Carry on because it is right, even on the days it hurts. Circumstances come and go. Let your drive and ambition stay constant.

Stand firm in all your habits

Many people need coping tricks to get through. Aim instead to be steady and unshakable. That steadiness should run through all your habits: what you do, what you say, what you eat and drink, and how you feel and think.

Stay curious

Be a sponge for knowledge, and hold on to what you learn. Picking up new skills, sharpening the ones you have, working on your weak spots and remaining a student of life for as long as you live are all habits worth falling into.

Own your results

When things do not go to plan and the outcome is not what you hoped, be the first to say, “That one is on me.” Remember: when you point a finger at someone else, three more fingers point back at you.

Know where you are going

Living without goals is like driving a car with no steering wheel. Have a clear direction, know how to reach it, and do not stop until you arrive.

Small acts of kindness have a remarkable effect, both on the people who receive them and on our own happiness. Being kind does not take much. Practise it every day, in every situation, until it becomes simply the way you are.

What kindness is

Kindness means being friendly, generous and considerate. Words like affection, gentleness, warmth, concern and care all live close to it.

Some people think a kind person must be naive or weak. That is not true. Being kind often takes courage and strength, especially when it would be easier to look away. Kindness is a skill we use with other people, and like any skill, it grows with practice.

Open your eyes

Kindness begins with noticing when someone is struggling. Then a kind word, a smile, holding a door open or helping with a heavy load can all be acts of kindness.

Ways to practise it

• Celebrate someone you love.
• Give honest compliments.
• Send a message to thank someone.
• Tell someone how special they are to you.
• Help an elderly neighbour with the garden, or bring them food or things they need.

What lasts

One day you will no longer be in this world. The kindness you showed will live on by the people whose lives you made happier. In the end, that may be the truest measure of a life well lived.

We usually treat wisdom as something outside ourselves: a quality to admire in old souls, and one we may never possess.

The way we usually see it

We think of wisdom as the knack of avoiding needless drama, and somewhere along the way we decide it belongs only to people who have seen a great deal of life. The rest of us, we assume, must keep making mistakes, because other people’s wisdom rarely seems to fit our own situation. So we walk straight into the fire, hoping that one day our turn to be wise will come.

What wisdom really is

Wisdom is not a store of quiet knowledge, taken out only after long and lofty reflection. It is an active quality, something that has to be practised every day, in ordinary moments.

How to practise it

Practising wisdom means looking within ourselves and following our problems all the way through, until we turn them into solutions. Avoiding a problem teaches nothing. Working through it teaches a great deal.

We are already whole. We do not need extra parts added to who we are. We are our own centre, and nothing from outside is required to make us more worthwhile.

Everything we need in order to change is already there, inside us. What remains is to turn our attention to that inner core, and to keep returning to it, one day at a time.

We are social creatures, so it is natural to feel uneasy when we learn that someone does not like us. What matters is knowing how to handle it, because at some point in your life it will happen.

Remind yourself who you are

Give yourself a short pep talk. Tell yourself that you are fine, and that there are plenty of people in your life who like you and care about you. One person’s opinion does not cancel all of theirs.

Stay civil and detached

Where possible, offer them a smile. When you show that you can be polite and calm around them, they are less likely to keep making their dislike obvious.

If you know you will be seeing or working with this person, accept it and prepare yourself in advance. Above all, resist the urge to slip in quiet, passive aggressive digs. They only keep the tension alive.

Put your attention where it belongs

To keep from feeling low, turn your focus to the things that truly matter to you, and let go, emotionally and even physically, of those who stand against you. Spending your energy on why someone dislikes you will not change the situation.

Ask yourself one honest question: does this person’s hostility really make a difference to my life? Unless there is a genuine reason behind their dislike, there is nothing to gain from worrying about what they do.

When it goes too far

Of course, if someone’s hostility is seriously affecting your daily life, whether through open insults, deliberate harassment or worse, it must be addressed. And if it becomes too much to carry alone, seek help from a professional.

Becoming an adult does not hand you emotional maturity, wisdom or the habit of being right. It does not protect you from making mistakes either.

Emotional maturity does not simply arrive with age, although it can be nurtured from an early age. Nor does it come from damage. You do not have to live through a mountain of hardship to understand life or to become a strong person. Maturity is something you practise. Here are four ways to grow it.

Treat mistakes as mistakes

A mistake is just that: a mistake. Do not run from it. Accept it, and take the lesson it offers. Running away only means meeting the same lesson again later.

Do not fear change

Change is uncomfortable, but it is how we grow. Each time we let it in instead of resisting it, we stretch a little further than before.

Make empathy visible

Respect the feelings of the people around you, and practise empathy in a practical way. Understanding someone quietly is not enough. You have to let them see that you understand, through what you say and what you do.

Hold on to yourself

Practise a healthy kind of detachment. Do not allow anything or anyone to become so important to you that you lose yourself in it. Caring deeply and staying whole are not opposites.

None of these depend on how old you are. A thoughtful young person can show more maturity than many adults, and anyone can start building it today.