From November 2023 to November 2024, I went a year without alcohol; it was interesting, to say the least. In this article, I will share how I found the experience.
Before starting this experiment, I wasn’t a heavy drinker but was probably drinking at least weekly or, if not twice per week. A drink was a drink; I didn’t think anything of it.
But then I realised how much I was spending on alcohol, and I listened to Dr Andrew Huberman’s podcast on alcohol. I was concerned, to say the least; I believe Dr Huberman noted that even having a couple of drinks per week can negatively affect your health.
I can’t remember exactly what he said, but It was frightening.
I don’t judge anyone for drinking, and I’ve probably been drinking since I was 16. In England, drinking culture is quite the thing. Heres what I found when I quit drinking.
1. Hangovers Where A Relic Of The Past
For me, this was the best benefit. I hate hangovers with a passion. With hangovers, I get moody and irritable and just turn into a horrible person.
I could say that I became much more productive. Unfortunately, this isn’t true; I was Nursing a wrist injury throughout the entire year that I stopped drinking and was in a very difficult relationship that I’m now out of.
But hey, ho, no hangovers were great.
2. I Saved And Invested More Money Than Ever
By not going out drinking, I wouldn’t spend money buying food or other things I may have previously bought while being “out on the drink”.
This allowed me to save more money in my general savings account and invest more in index funds.
3. I Spent More Time With My Ex-girlfriend
This wasn’t that great; we ultimately drove each other insane and split up. Honestly, she is probably part of the reason I stopped drinking. She was highly needy and possessive and, unfortunately, tried to stop me from going out with my friends.
4. I Got Sick Just As Much As Normal (probably more)
Before I started this experiment, I thought I’d turn into Wolverine or something by the 1-year mark. This wasn’t the case; alas, I’m still human.
5. I Didn’t Miss Alcohol
I can honestly take or leave alcohol. Some beers are pretty pleasant. I do enjoy a good German wheat beer. But honestly, I didn’t get the craving for alcohol. This is probably because most alcoholic beverages in the United Kingdom taste like mouldy urine.
If it weren’t for me going to my best friend’s stag do in November, I still probably wouldn’t have had an alcoholic drink.
6. My Sleep Didn’t Change
If you look at the benefits of going completely sober, one of the main benefits is better sleep. Honestly, it didn’t make a difference to me.
7. Going Without Alcohol For A Year Is Overrated
For the most part, I think everything you watch and read online is sensationalised, and you wouldn’t click on these influencer’s articles or videos about giving up alcohol if the results were mediocre.
The Bottom Line On A Year Without Alcohol
If you’re someone like me who hasn’t really got a problem with alcohol, going a year without it probably won’t make much of a difference to how you feel. But if you have alcoholism, I think the benefits will be dramatic. I’ve been an idiot on occasions when I’ve been drunk, maybe a handful of times; I think I took this to heart and thought it meant I had a problem; in reality, I don’t. But we’ll see what my psychologist says.
On a cold autumnal morning in November 2023, I got out of bed, got dressed, hydrated, had my pre-workout meal, and drove to the gym to complete a pull day workout consisting of deadlifts, rows, weighted chin-ups and barbell curls.
The workout went fine until I started performing my work sets of weighted chin-ups.
The gym was busy, and I couldn’t use the regular pull-up bar because they were all occupied.
So, I had to use the monkey bars to perform the weighted chin-ups.
I was already warmed up from the previous exercises, so I went straight into the work sets. I had a belt tied to my waist with a chain on, and attached to the chain was a 15kg plate.
I was doing chin-ups with my body weight and 15kg attached, so the total weight lifted was around 95kg because I weighed around 80kg (80kg + 15kg = 95kg).
I grab the pull-up bar with both my hands and the 15kg weight plate attached and start repping out chin-ups; my goal is to hit 4-6 reps for three sets.
While performing the first several reps, I felt an uncomfortable pull in my wrist and stopped the exercise.
My wrist was painful, and it felt unstable, but it wasn’t excruciating ( maybe a 6/10 in regards to the severity of the pain).
After experiencing this, I rest and try again. It still doesn’t feel right, so I perform dumbbell curls. They didn’t feel right either.
I go home, shower, get dressed, start working, and get on with my day. A couple of days later, I tried to perform my leg workout, but gripping the bar for barbell squats didn’t feel right, and I realised there was a serious problem with my right wrist (to make things worse, it was my dominant wrist).
So, I gave myself a 2-week break from the gym.
After the 2 weeks were up, the pain was still there, but I tried to go back to lifting, thinking, “Maybe my wrist is weak after the injury and needs to be strengthened”, so I tried to train for a few weeks.
The pain was still there.
I then saw my general practitioner (GP) at the local doctor’s surgery centre, and he gave me a wrist splint to wear for a few weeks.
It didn’t help.
A few weeks later, the GP authorised an ultrasound for me on my wrist. When I had the ultrasound, the doctor couldn’t find a cause for my pain; he said, “It’s probably just mild tendonitis”.
I gave my wrist more time to heal, then saw a physiotherapist to help me with correctional exercises, hoping this would fix the problem.
Nothing helps.
I wait several more months, then see an orthopaedic surgeon who requests an MRI scan of my wrist.
He finds no cause for my wrist pain on the MRI and tells me to start using my wrist as usual again.
I couldn’t deal with the pain any longer, so I asked him to refer me to a soft tissue wrist specialist.
I went to see the specialist, and he gave me a steroid injection in my wrist, hoping to reduce any inflammation in my wrist that might have been causing the pain.
It didn’t work.
The next option was wrist keyhole surgery to find a cause for my wrist pain (and hopefully fix my wrist) because the specialist said MRIs could only be 70% correct, meaning my diagnosis had probably gone undetected so far.
In December 2024, I was put under general anaesthetic and had my wrist surgery.
The surgeon found a Triangular fibrocartilage complex (tfcc) tear and repaired it the operation lasted around 2 hours.
As of writing this article, I’m almost 9 weeks post-op, and my wrist is improving.
Don’t Get Injured
Why did I develop the injury? It’s because of a few factors.
I was getting back into weighted chin-ups after a period of not doing them and added too much weight too quickly.
My weighted chin-up form could have been better. I was in a rush the day I got injured and was going through the motions.
It was a cold morning, and I should have warmed up more before performing the weighted chin-ups. I should have performed 2- 3 sets of 6 reps of bodyweight chin-ups before doing my work sets. This would have warmed up my wrist joints, reducing the likelihood of sustaining the injury.
What I’m Going To Do Moving Forward
I won’t do pull-ups or chin-ups anymore (definitely not weighted ones). Instead, I’ll use the lat pulldown exercise and focus on perfect form. I’ll use a full range of motion. The lat pulldown is as effective as the chin-up as it targets the same muscles as you do in the chin-up.
What You Can Take Away from My Experience
Warm up properly before completing any heavy sets.
Always use perfect form. Always use a full range of motion, and don’t use momentum. Your muscles are supposed to do the work (this is true for every exercise, even a bicep curl).
You know your body better than anyone. See a specialist if you face an injury like mine as soon as possible. I unfortunately wasted a year of my life experiencing this chronic pain.
This Experience Was One Of The Most Challenging Of My Life
Albert Einstein said, “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting different results”. I spun my wheels for over a year. Truth be told, I was going insane before I got my surgery.
Your health affects every aspect of your life; to be injured is to be in poor health. Injuries will make everything in your life harder. We don’t need that; life’s already hard enough.
The Big Problem With Fitness Culture
Many people, especially guys, want to be as big and strong as physically possible. They’re constantly drip-fed images of bodybuilders on their Instagram feeds, which undoubtedly makes men feel inferior to “fitness influencers” regarding physique and strength.
What happens (or what happened to me)? I would compare myself to these guys and try to get as big and strong as possible (it’s not possible for a natural weightlifter to get as big and strong as these “fitness influencers” who take steroids).
This led me to ignore my health and, instead, to lift as much weight as possible.
I’d slam down 4000 calories daily when bulking and “go hard or go home” at the gym (I’m surprised I didn’t experience more injuries, especially when I first started going to the gym).
I’m among the lucky ones.
I hear shocking stories about gym culture on social media (predominantly YouTube). People are dying in the name of strength training.
Firstly, you have the bodybuilders on steroids who are so big their hearts literally can’t handle pumping the blood around their bodies, and then these guys prematurely die of heart attacks.
If you haven’t heard what happened to Justyn Vicky, he died doing heavy back squats ( warning: this video is deeply distressing). He was only 33 when he died. That’s no age, and the whole situation is deeply tragic.
It’s worth noting that Kristina Schmidt a 24-year-old personal trainer snapped her hip in half after doing heavy hip thrusts. She had to have surgery and, unfortunately, after surgery, got a bacterial infection, which was life-threatening.
Gabriel McKenna-Lieschke from Adelaide, Australia, was performing bicep curls with a 50kg weight and tore his bicep, resulting in him needing surgery, which then caused complications and his forearm required to be amputated.
Scott Murray, who developed an eating disorder around his fitness routine, took it so far that he eventually died of heart failure; Scott Was unfortunately only in his 20s when he passed away.
When Did Becoming Healthy Get So Unhealthy
The goal of strength training shouldn’t be to lift as much weight as possible; it should be to consistently keep your joints, bones, tendons and ligaments strong for the rest of your life.
In short, you need to become a lifter, which can only be achieved by consistently going to the gym. I recommend going around 3 times per week.
To become a lifter, you need to be consistent. You can’t become consistent if you’re injured. So, the one thing we need to avoid when strength training is injury.
How Do You Know When The Weights Are Too Heavy?
When you can’t perform a full range of motion for the exercise.
If you start using momentum when the weight gets heavy. You need to use your muscles, not momentum.
When your form breaks down, for example, your back rounding when deadlifting or squatting or your shoulders rolling forward in the bench press.
When you literally couldn’t have completed another rep with good form. Leave two reps in reserve (stop the set when you feel you could have done an extra two reps with perfect form) at the end of every set. Perform all reps flawlessly.
The Bottom Line
Please take what you can from my injury experience, warm up properly, don’t lift too heavy too soon, and always use the full range of motion. Your main goal in strength training (even more critical than getting stronger) is not to get injured. If you get hurt, your whole life will change for the worse. Life is too short to be in pain for a year like I was. Please listen to what I’m saying here. I would hate for you to go through a similar experience. Also, remove yourself from the toxicity of fitness culture if you can. I know removing myself from social media helped me. People are killing themselves in the name of “gains”. Health should always be the top priority. If anything you do compromises your health, you’re doing the wrong thing.
The first picture at the top of the article is me before going into theater for surgery in my hospital gown.
The second picture is a couple of days after surgery. As you can see, I’m wearing a plaster cast.
Over the past year, I’ve suffered from a chronic wrist injury from lifting weights. In this article, I want to use my experience as a springboard to ensure you know how to not get injured lifting weights.
This is my story.
On a cold autumnal morning in November 2023, I got out of bed, got dressed, hydrated, had my pre-workout meal, and drove to the gym to complete a pull day workout consisting of deadlifts, rows, weighted chin-ups and barbell curls.
The workout went fine until I started performing my work sets of weighted chin-ups.
The gym was busy, and I couldn’t use the regular pull-up bar because they were all occupied.
So, I had to use the monkey bars to perform the weighted chin-ups.
I was already warmed up from the previous exercises, so I went straight into the work sets. I had a belt tied to my waist with a chain on, and attached to the chain was a 15kg plate.
I was doing chin-ups with my body weight and 15kg attached, so the total weight lifted was around 95kg because I weighed around 80kg (80kg + 15kg = 95kg).
I grab the pull-up bar with both my hands and the 15kg weight plate attached and start repping out chin-ups; my goal is to hit 4-6 reps for three sets.
While performing the first several reps, I felt an uncomfortable pull in my wrist and stopped the exercise.
My wrist was painful, and it felt unstable, but it wasn’t excruciating ( maybe a 6/10 in regards to the severity of the pain).
After experiencing this, I rest and try again. It still doesn’t feel right, so I perform dumbbell curls. They didn’t feel right either.
I go home, shower, get dressed, start working, and get on with my day. A couple of days later, I tried to perform my leg workout, but gripping the bar for barbell squats didn’t feel right, and I realised there was a serious problem with my right wrist (to make things worse, it was my dominant wrist).
So, I gave myself a 2-week break from the gym.
After the 2 weeks were up, the pain was still there, but I tried to go back to lifting, thinking, “Maybe my wrist is weak after the injury and needs to be strengthened”, so I tried to train for a few weeks.
The pain was still there.
I then saw my general practitioner (GP) at the local doctor’s surgery centre, and he gave me a wrist splint to wear for a few weeks.
It didn’t help.
A few weeks later, the GP authorised an ultrasound for me on my wrist. When I had the ultrasound, the doctor couldn’t find a cause for my pain; he said, “It’s probably just mild tendonitis”.
I gave my wrist more time to heal, then saw a physiotherapist to help me with correctional exercises, hoping this would fix the problem.
Noting helps.
I wait several more months, then see an orthopaedic surgeon who requests an MRI scan of my wrist.
He finds no cause for my wrist pain on the MRI and tells me to start using my wrist as usual again.
I couldn’t deal with the pain any longer, so I asked him to refer me to a soft tissue wrist specialist.
I went to see the specialist, and he gave me a steroid injection in my wrist, hoping to reduce any inflammation in my wrist that might have been causing the pain.
It didn’t work.
The next option was wrist keyhole surgery to find a cause for my wrist pain (and hopefully fix my wrist) because the specialist said MRIs could only be 70% correct, meaning my diagnosis had probably gone undetected so far.
In December 2024, I was put under general anaesthetic and had my wrist surgery.
The surgeon found a Triangular fibrocartilage complex (tfcc) tear and repaired it the operation lasted around 2 hours.
As of writing this article, I’m almost 9 weeks post-op, and my wrist is improving.
How To Not Get Injured Lifting Weights – Don’t Get Injured In The First Place
Why did I develop the injury? It’s because of a few factors.
I was getting back into weighted chin-ups after a period of not doing them and added too much weight too quickly.
My weighted chin-up form could have been better. I was in a rush the day I got injured and was going through the motions.
It was a cold morning, and I should have warmed up more before performing the weighted chin-ups. I should have performed 2- 3 sets of 6 reps of bodyweight chin-ups before doing my work sets. This would have warmed up my wrist joints, reducing the likelihood of sustaining the injury.
What I’m Going To Do Moving Forward
I won’t do pull-ups or chin-ups anymore (definitely not weighted ones). Instead, I’ll use the lat pulldown exercise and focus on perfect form. I’ll use a full range of motion. The lat pulldown is as effective as the chin-up as it targets the same muscles as you do in the chin-up.
How To Not Get Injured Lifting Weights – 5 Steps For Injury Prevention
Warm up properly before completing any heavy sets.
Always use perfect form. Always use a full range of motion, and don’t use momentum. Your muscles are supposed to do the work (this is true for every exercise, even a bicep curl).
You know your body better than anyone. See a specialist if you face an injury like mine as soon as possible. I unfortunately wasted a year of my life experiencing this chronic pain.
This Experience Was One Of The Most Challenging Of My Life
Albert Einstein said, “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting different results”. I spun my wheels for over a year. Truth be told, I was going insane before I got my surgery.
Your health affects every aspect of your life; to be injured is to be in poor health. Injuries will make everything in your life harder. We don’t need that; life’s already hard enough.
And that’s why I’m writing this article to ensure you know how to not get injured lifting weights.
The Big Problem With Fitness Culture
Many people, especially guys, want to be as big and strong as physically possible. They’re constantly drip-fed images of bodybuilders on their Instagram feeds, which undoubtedly makes men feel inferior to “fitness influencers” regarding physique and strength.
What happens (or what happened to me)? I would compare myself to these guys and try to get as big and strong as possible (it’s not possible for a natural weightlifter to get as big and strong as these “fitness influencers” who take steroids).
This led me to ignore my health and, instead, to lift as much weight as possible.
I’d slam down 4000 calories daily when bulking and “go hard or go home” at the gym (I’m surprised I didn’t experience more injuries, especially when I first started going to the gym).
I’m among the lucky ones.
I hear shocking stories about gym culture on social media (predominantly YouTube). People are dying in the name of strength training.
Firstly, you have the bodybuilders on steroids who are so big their hearts literally can’t handle pumping the blood around their bodies, and then these guys prematurely die of heart attacks.
If you haven’t heard what happened to Justyn Vicky, he died doing heavy back squats ( warning: this video is deeply distressing). He was only 33 when he died. That’s no age, and the whole situation is deeply tragic.
It’s worth noting that Kristina Schmidt a 24-year-old personal trainer snapped her hip in half after doing heavy hip thrusts. She had to have surgery and, unfortunately, after surgery, got a bacterial infection, which was life-threatening.
Gabriel McKenna-Lieschke from Adelaide, Australia, was performing bicep curls with a 50kg weight and tore his bicep, resulting in him needing surgery, which then caused complications and his forearm required to be amputated.
Scott Murray, who developed an eating disorder around his fitness routine, took it so far that he eventually died of heart failure; Scott Was unfortunately only in his 20s when he passed away.
When Did Becoming Healthy Get So Unhealthy
The goal of strength training shouldn’t be to lift as much weight as possible; it should be to consistently keep your joints, bones, tendons and ligaments strong for the rest of your life.
In short, you need to become a lifter, which can only be achieved by consistently going to the gym. I recommend going around 3 times per week.
To become a lifter, you need to be consistent. You can’t become consistent if you’re injured. So, the one thing we need to avoid when strength training is injury.
How Do You Know When The Weights Are Too Heavy?
When you can’t perform a full range of motion for the exercise.
If you start using momentum when the weight gets heavy. You need to use your muscles, not momentum.
When your form breaks down, for example, your back rounding when deadlifting or squatting or your shoulders rolling forward in the bench press.
When you literally couldn’t have completed another rep with good form. Leave two reps in reserve (stop the set when you feel you could have done an extra two reps with perfect form) at the end of every set. Perform all reps flawlessly.
The Bottom Line On How To Not Get Injured Lifting Weights
Please take what you can from my injury experience, warm up properly, don’t lift too heavy too soon, and always use the full range of motion. Your main goal in strength training (even more critical than getting stronger) is not to get injured. If you get hurt, your whole life will change for the worse. Life is too short to be in pain for a year like I was. Please listen to what I’m saying here. I would hate for you to go through a similar experience. Also, remove yourself from the toxicity of fitness culture if you can. I know removing myself from social media helped me. People are killing themselves in the name of “gains”. Health should always be the top priority. If anything you do compromises your health, you’re doing the wrong thing.
The first picture at the top of the article is me before going into theater for surgery in my hospital gown.
The second picture is a couple of days after surgery. As you can see, I’m wearing a plaster cast.
I hope this article helps you going forward and that you can learn from my experience on how to not get injured lifting weights.
Certain things in life are almost guaranteed to make you unhappy.
Here are some of the things I believe make you unhappy and how to remedy them. No one deserves to be unhappy.
You’re Injured
I’ve just had surgery for some torn cartilage in my wrist. I’ve been in pain for over a year, and spoke to numerous doctors and physios but no one could fix it until I saw a specialist.
Being injured sucks, day to day tasks you take for granted are suddenly much more difficult.
The Remedy- Don’t Get Injured But If you Do See A Specialist
If you ain’t got your health you got nothing.
Even if getting the surgery would have required me to take out a loan I one hundred per cent would of.
If you’re in the same predicament I’m very sorry to hear that but luckily there are some amazing people in the medical world, see a specialist you won’t regret it.
If you’re one of the lucky ones who hasn’t been injured, do everything in your power to make sure things stay that way.
Heed my advice it might just save your life.
You Have Bad Habits
Ultimately we’re the lump sum of our habits. Your habits are either taking you where you want to go or they’re not.
Look at habits like a plane travelling from London to Paris, if the plane changes direction by a measly thirty degrees you’d end up almost one hundred and ten miles away from Paris.
So if we practice the wrong habits we get further and further away from the person we want to be.
And if bad habits are ingrained long term (I’m talking decades) they take you places where you never thought you’d go and not nice places either.
Some bad habits are any that stop you from obtaining good health and stop you from practising good habits.
Habits that are bad for your health:
Smoking
Drinking alcohol
Over eating on junk food
Bad sleep routines
Consuming large quantities of sugar
Avoiding eating fruits and veggies
Bad Habits that keep you from good ones.
Watching the news or reading newspapers ( don’t believe me? Try picking up and reading a newspaper from last year, if you think it’s good I’ll be extremely surprised)
Binge watching television
Spending too much time on social media (literally junk food for your brain)
Swap The Bad Habits For Good Ones
Here are some simple swaps that will help.
Smoking- become a non-smoker.
Drinking- become a non-drinker.
Junk food- swap it out for healthy foods like fruit, vegetables, meat, and whole foods. Eat a well-balanced diet.
Bad sleep routines- develop a good sleep routine this may include drinking some camomile tea, listening to some calming music or reading a paperback book. Try avoiding screens one or two hours before bed.
Watching and reading news or binging on social media- Read a good book that’ll make you smarter.
The Magic Of Good Habits
Practice the good habits one day at a time and make sure you complete them every day it will change your life, here’s how.
Say you have four habits you want to build such as working out, reading, writing blog posts and going for daily walks.
If you practice these habits every day then you’re essentially casting four votes ( every day) for the type of person you want to be.
After a month you’d have acquired one hundred and twenty-four votes and in a year a whopping one thousand four hundred and sixty votes they all add up and compound, like compound interest.
You Have Friends With Different Values To You
If your friend is a drinker and he does nothing but drink to have a good time.
And if you’re a non-drinker who enjoys completely different things to your friend ( you have no aligning values at all) then how will this relationship continue? it doesn’t have two legs to stand on.
If you stay in a friendship with someone you don’t respect or align with it’s possible you may take on some of the negative sides of their character. Pick your friends wisely.
You Hate Your Job
If you’re constantly in inner turmoil about your job. This can leave you feeling unfulfilled and sad.
The fix is simple, what job do you want to do instead? When you know the answer do everything you can to achieve it.
Sometimes we need to work jobs we don’t enjoy for the sake of money.
This is fine just make sure you’re spending your free time outside work making your dreams a reality (only if you’re not satisfied with your job and work-life and have larger ambitions).
You’re Spinning Too Many Plates
There are only so many things we can truly focus on and get good at.
If we try and get good at many things we spread ourselves too thin.
And achieve nothing.
Being Lonely
There’s a big difference between being lonely and being alone.
It’s good to enjoy your own company. But remember humans are sociable beings.
Text a friend, speak to him or her, laugh, meet up with family.
Go to a coffee shop.
Taking Yourself Too Seriously
Take your goals seriously but in your downtime don’t be afraid to have some fun. What is life without fun?
The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing – Socrates
Look back at your life. What out-of-the ordinary events have caused you unnecessary suffering, loss or pain?
In those moments what got you into trouble? Was it what you knew or didn’t know that caused the suffering?
I think its what you didn’t know, because if you knew, you could have avoided the unwelcome situation.
To make what I’m saying clearer I’ll give you a personal example.
Over a year ago I tore some cartilage in my wrist while doing weighted chin ups at the gym.
I’ve only recently had surgery for this and I’m now recovering.
I never thought I could tear cartilage in my wrist by doing weighted chin ups.
Because I’d performed this exercise many times, and I’d seen many people doing this exercise devoid of any problems.
Only after the problem ensued have I found that gymnasts often experience the same issue of torn cartilage in their wrists which is appropriately called a torn triangular fibrocartilage complex or tfcc for short.
Now that I’m aware of this injury, I’m going to rejoice in the knowledge that I will do everything I can to avoid this happening again.
From this experience I’ve also started to learn about common and not so common weightlifting injuries that I previously wasn’t aware of so that I can completely avoid them in the future.
If I knew what I knew now before I sustained the injury, it would have never occurred and I would have avoided a years worth of pain that the injury caused.
Look At Your Finances
Unfortunately there are a lot of people struggling financially. What they know (which is limited) is destroying any dream of financial independence.
If more people focused on what they didn’t know about financial management and wealth accumulation they’d force themselves to learn timeless principles, which will help them improve there financial situation and positively affect their lives.
Look At Your Fitness
What are the habits keeping you from getting in shape?
Drinking, smoking, fad diets etc.
Chances are if you’re not in shape but want to get in shape. What you know is hurting you, and you need to learn how to get in shape either by knowledge ( reading books or blog posts) or by hiring a personal trainer.
How To Make The Unknown Known
I challenge you to read the top 5 best selling books about whatever subject you don’t know about and I guarantee you’ll arm yourself with the knowledge to get where you need to go no matter the sphere.
5 books is the starting point. The accumulation of knowledge should never end.
The more you know, the more you realise you don’t know.
The Takeaway
The books we don’t read are far more important than the books we read. We need to wage war on our naivety and realise that what we know can only take us so far. Its what we don’t know that plagues us.
Don’t go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first. – Mark Twain
When we have too high expectations of the world we can end up feeling dejected.
Why did he act like that how could he be so brazen?
Why am I working this job? I can do much better I deserve better.
At the heart of thinking the world owes us a living is entitlement.
How can we expect anything of the world if we won’t put in the work.
It’s much easier to complain and have a sense of entitlement than it is to do the work and eventually, through blood sweat and tears reap the fruits of life.
The very best thing you can do for the whole world is to make the most of yourself
Never forget this. We can’t control what others do but we can become the very best versions of ourselves.
Do this
Instead of asking what can the world do for me ask “what can I do for the world?“
The sooner we take control of our own inner world the happier we become
If we expect lots from the world we relinquish all inner power.
We become reactive only responding to what happens as it happens.
But if we instead become proactive and take control of our lives the world is our oyster.
The Takeaway
Whenever we think the problem is out there, that thought is the problem.
Pay attention to what you envy. Jealousy is an ugly emotion, but it tells the truth. You mostly envy those who have what you desire. – Susan Cain
As much as envy and jealousy are ugly emotions, they’re both natural.
Sometimes in life we know we want more but often get stuck in indecision.
The fix to finding out what you want in all areas of life is to look at others.
If someone has a job you envy, it may be worth doing some training so that you can go down the same career route.
If someone is fit and healthy and you’re envious, it’s a sign that you should probably get in shape.
Envy is the only emotion no one admits to.
But it can point to the truth if you’re receptive enough.
Remember if someone else can do it so can you.
Who Do You Admire?
Why do you admire them? Keep asking why. It might be that you’re impressed with something they’ve done and you want to do something similar yourself.
Whatever you admire and are jealous of in others are all signs to point you to the truth of what you really want deep down.
The Takeaway
As much as jealousy and envy can be negative emotions. They show us what qualities and achievements in others we’d like to cultivate in ourselves. These emotions also alert us to the fact that another human has done great things or has great qualities, so we can too.
But the most important thing to do before picking goals is to determine if you’re willing to do what it takes to succeed.
The First Step Is Thinking About The Goal And Finding Out What It Takes To Succeed
This part is crucial because if you thoroughly do your research on what it takes to succeed for any given goal then you’ll be able to answer the vital question.
Am I willing to do what it takes?
If you are with pretty much 100% accuracy, this is a good sign.
But if you’re undecided or are clearly not willing to do what it takes, don’t proceed with that course of action.
Assessing if you’re willing to do what it takes to reach a goal, will save you valuable time in the future.
Because many people including myself have took a certain course of action and only after pursuing the endeavor realise they’re not willing to do what It takes.
As Nietzsche wrote, “The value of a thing sometimes lies not in what one attains with it, but in what one pays for it—what it costs us.”
The Bottom line
Assessing at the outset if you’re honestly willing to do what it takes to reach x goal will save you lots of time going forward.
Everything has a cost in life whether that be time or financial. Time spent on one thing is time spent away from another.
Pick your battles wisely. Choosing the right things to work on is just as important (if not more so) than the act of working hard.
Erudite is defined as “ having or showing great knowledge or learning”.
How do we become erudite?
Doing things such as reading books or trying different hobbies that push you mentally.
Some things I’m personally doing are:
Blogging, it helps to hone my writing and communication skills, which no matter how good, can always be improved.
I’m also trying to read more challenging books that push me to higher levels of understanding.
Erudite isn’t a destination it’s a journey that we get better at one day at a time.
The pursuit or erudite is inherently satisfying.
Learning for its ownsake.
I’ve also started to take up chess, which is known to have great benefits like improving strategic and planning skills. It’s also very challenging and you can always get better at it.
Some other things that are inherently valuable to pursue:
Martial arts and playing an instrument.
Anything that challenges you and helps you aquire knowledge and skill is inherently gratifying.
The Takeaway
Becoming erudite is a worthwhile ambition. We should all be learning skills, acquiring knowledge and becoming better at different pursuits. Becoming erudite has major carryover to every part of your life.
Finding something you like and enjoy getting good at will give you an unimaginable aura of confidence.
Having the Self-control to stick to your fitness regime and diet makes you healthier by giving you freedom from disease and dysfunction.
Having self-control with your finances will help you save money and have more financial freedom.
Self-control makes you free. If you’re not in control of yourself who are you in control of?
Would you have a great empire? Rule over yourself. – Publilius Syrus
What does a life look like without self-control?
Addiction, gluttony, and pain.
If we want to do anything worthwhile it all starts with self-control.
Focus on this and you can’t go wrong.
Where to start:
Have the self control everyday to:
Get up early.
Read.
Workout.
Write a blog post.
Do the hard things at work.
Tidy your house.
Eat well.
Hydrate.
And I promise your life will change.
Without self-control we:
Say and do things we regret.
Give up when the going gets tough.
Pick the easy unfulfilling path over the harder yet more fulfilling one.
Drink too much.
Eat too much.
Are lazy.
Are whiny.
Are unproductive.
The Bottom Line
Self-control is one the most important virtues we can cultivate in ourselves. It’s impossible to anything that isn’t right if we’re fully in control of ourselves. Most of the problems in life such as addiction, pain and poor health arise because we never had the self- control to do what was right.
“If, at some point in your life, you should come across anything better than justice, honesty, self-control, courage—than a mind satisfied that it has succeeded in enabling you to act rationally, and satisfied to accept what’s beyond its control—if you find anything better than that, embrace it without reservations—it must be an extraordinary thing indeed—and enjoy it to the full”. – Marcus Aurelius
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