The Un-Holy Grail of Kicking Ass Part 2

The Un-Holy Grail of Kicking Ass

1. Don’t be afraid to spend money.

This might seem counterintuitive, but here’s the deal: Money exists for a reason. You have it so you can exchange it for something of value to you. If you don’t exchange it, i.e. spend it, you don’t get the value that it’s worth. I’m not talking about material items, at the moment, but would encourage you to think of spending money in terms of an investment in yourself–you are essentially buying yourself experience.

On a separate but related note, stop for a minute and remind yourself what money actually is: A small little piece of paper. Every small little piece of paper is the same as every other small little piece of paper. There’s no inherent value in them; we assign value to them. If you can start to think of money for what it actually is, it’s easier not to let it have as much power over you. That said, these small little pieces of paper come and they go. It’s what money does. It comes, and it goes. If you allocate it to one place, and you’re short at the moment…don’t even worry about it. It’ll be back.

2. Don’t be afraid of risk.

This seems obvious, but because it tends to be a recurring theme in the sense that, despite the fact that most people agree they should take more risk, they still don’t. And they need to. Risk is the only thing that’s saving you from a boring, uneventful life of wanting to stab yourself in the eye with a sharp object every morning. Be grateful for it. Embrace it. Play with it. Flirt with it. Give it a knowing look. Tickle it, by golly, if that’s your thing. Let it lead you to places you could have never imagined. Without risk, we would all be doomed. 

3. Know what you want. Write it down. 

This doesn’t make you a geek, this makes you infinitely more ahead of the game than most. Once you know what you want, the rest is easy. Anytime a new opportunity presents itself, you say yes if it helps further you along the path to reaching your goal, and you say no if it doesn’t. There is no gray area. Yes if it does, no if it doesn’t. Period. Watch how quickly your life comes into focus.This also serves the secondary purpose of helping you narrow down and fine tune what it is, exactly, you do want–you’ll discover that if you have difficulty saying no to unrelated opportunities, then you probably didn’t want it as much as you initially thought.

4. Don’t label yourself. 

Do not put yourself in any boxes, and do not fall into the common trap of thinking that you have to be either this or that. Why? Because you can be both. Hell, you can be all. You can explore multiple career options, if that’s where you’re at in life. You can explore various interests. You can like red wine one day and beer the next. You can be intelligent and still care about your looks, and vice versa. Or the complete opposite. You can decide something one day, and then later change your mind. Avoid limiting yourself to one thing, just because you worry that you’ll appear flighty and off-center if you don’t. You won’t. If anything, you’d be wiser. Not to mention regret free.

5. Stop taking yourself so seriously.

We go through life stressing ourselves out about the impact of this decision versus that decision and this path versus that path, etc. etc. etc. We literally self-impose medical conditions because we worry so much. Stop worrying. Stop feeling like everything is this big, serious ordeal and, if you mess it up, all hell is going to break loose. The truth is that nothing is as big of a deal as it seems. Learn to think of life like a game. One big, giant experiment. When it comes down to it, that’s all it is anyway…so instead of stressing over whether the chemicals will mix and blow up, be content to just sit back and let things jive–you might end up with a new miracle drug.