Get off the well worn path

Have you ever felt unmotivated, trapped, or stuck in life? Are you searching for a way to better your situation in life? Some people will say to focus on yourself, yet don’t provide a guide on how to do that. This article will serve as a compass for you to navigate the waves of life in the direction of mental, physical and emotional improvement.

This article and blog, in general, are a guide to overall wellness and should not be used as a substitute for any serious medical emergencies. If you have a real issue in your life – mentally, emotionally, or physically – please seek treatment. In an ideal world the author would like to NOT see a man in a black suit knocking at his door with a court date, because he’s not an expert just someone with an opinion.

“There is no knowledge that is not power” – Ralph Waldo Emmerson. There were two trees in the biblical story of creation – the first was the tree of knowledge over good and evil. God commanded Adam and Eve to not eat of the fruit, as they would die. This prophecy came true, because as we humans have eaten of the fruit of knowledge we have died. Our mortal form has been dispersed and we have become like gods able to create or destroy at will, able to go to the heavens, and we’ll develop our own Adam in the form of A.I. soon.

Not all humans are meant to change the world like Einstein, but you can take steps in your everyday life to become a bit more mentally sharp, have a better quality of life, and be a bit more like those gods in the stories. You have the capacity to be greater than you are right now. Knowledge is power, so you need to learn more. Here are some examples:

1. Reading – If an average book has 20 chapters, by reading just 1 chapter per day you’ll read seventeen books per year. That’s thousands of thoughts and ideas that you’ve never conceived of before, being adopted by your brain. If you don’t have the time to sit down and read, audiobooks are a great alternative.
2. Crossword Puzzles – these are an excellent way to get your mind in a problem-solving mode. Crossword puzzles also help with your reading comprehension and overall language skills.
3. Learning a foreign language – There are countless people out there for you to connect with; separated only by a language barrier that you have the ability to break.

Money is also important and companies are more likely to hire applicants who are bilingual, than those that aren’t. It’s not difficult; just a few minutes a day with a language learning app will change your life in a year. The author is in the process of learning french and russian. For an example of what learning a foreign language is like: Picture the word “hello”- what are some synonyms? Hi, hey and ‘sup. Now imagine you’re in a room with three other people, each person can say hello, and one of the syllables (hi, hey or ‘sup) but none of the others. Because your multilingual you can say hi to one, hey to another and ‘sup to the third and have them talk to you while not knowing what any other one is saying. Pretty cool right?

1. Keeping track of the stock market – The author is of the firm belief that the stock market is a goldmine anyone can excavate given the right knowledge and skills. A great place to start is just by watching the stock market each morning. You don’t have to look at fifteen hundred stocks with spreadsheets, but you can look at just one stock- Apple for example- and predict whether it’ll go up or down by the end of the day. Not only does this give you a base to become a millionaire, and who doesn’t want to do that, but it also allows you to become better at pattern recognition -which is the basis for IQ.
2. Getting your finances in order – Budgeting is something everyone should do, as stated before “knowledge is power” and wealth is a reflection of knowledge. The smarter you are, the more likely you are to make money, and having enough money to retire young and enjoy your life seems like a smart thing to do.
3. Keeping track of dreams – the subconscious mind is active while we dream. Keeping a dream journal will give us a peek into our subconscious mind, and figure ourselves out better. By keeping a journal by your bed and writing down everything you remember as soon as you wake up, you’ll have a better picture of how you think and why you do what you do.
4. Taking courses to learn social skills – Social skills are correlated with better success in getting a job. More than that, the author believes better social skills equates to better success in life – whether it be in negotiations, persuasion or selling yourself they all require social skills.

All of these are steps you can take in your own life to provide tremendous positive benefits. In that way they’re all equal, so by doing any one of them, you’ll be helping yourself out.

Physical fitness is vital, to not only the duration but the quality of your life. It’s the preference of the author, and it’s something everyone should strive to be great in.

“No man has the right to be an amateur in the matter of physical training. It is a shame for a man to grow old without seeing the beauty and strength of which his body is capable.” – Socrates.

Some people say physical fitness takes too much time, too much discipline and is just too complex to know where to start. These complaints are valid, so this article will simplify the concepts so you can do them yourself.

Some simple ways to be more fit and healthy are as follows:

1. Jog a mile every morning – You don’t have to train for the olympics to leave your house in the morning and jog for fifteen minutes down the street and back. A great way to run is with some music, hard rock, rap or your favorite theme song will help you zone out and zoom. According to a study by harvard running even a bit a day will improve heart health, mood, and life expectancy.
2. Weightlifting a few hours per week – Would you like to have the muscles you see on social media? It probably won’t happen, but you can try weightlifting a few sessions per week. Whether you want to get abs, or a nice butt, everyone can find a use for weight training. Some girls think that if they start lifting weights, they’ll get “too muscular”. Yes the thought process is solid, but no, it’s not something that you have to worry about. A simple way to start weight training is a total body workout every other day for around an hour or so, for example.
3. Keeping track of your calories – If you want to lose weight, or just eat healthier, it’s a good idea to know exactly what you’re eating so you can change what you’re doing. There are plenty of good free apps out there like myfitness pal, where all you have to do is log as much of what you eat as possible.

Doing any one of these things will increase the quality and quantity of your life. Any of these things can be done for less than the price of a cup of coffee per month.

Emotional stability is a very difficult goal to achieve but is perhaps the most important and undervalued of the three aspects highlighted in this article; it leads to success, happiness, and love in our society.

Most people don’t practice enough self awareness to reflect on their emotional state at any time during the day, so by completing a few simple steps you’ll already be better than most people. Practicing emotional stability will have tremendous benefits on the rest of your life.

1. Meditation – There are numerous benefits to meditation including better decision making, decreased stress, and more discipline.
2. Yoga/breathing – The pina coladas guy isn’t much into Yoga, but it is one of the best things you can do for yourself. Deep breathing works very well with yoga, so it has been included. Both deep breathing and yoga are major stress relievers, and help to increase overall mobility.
3. Making Your Bed – Making your bed each morning makes your room nicer, puts your brain into a problem solving mindset, and, whenever you clean, you feel amazing due to the “feel good” endorphins released.
4. Motivational Videos – Every morning when you wake up you can watch a motivational video to kickstart your day. It’ll put you in a positive mood to tackle any situation you have to handle, and it’ll give you motivation to get a workout in which you need to do.
5. Journaling – Understanding how you think and feel is key for you to correct any behavior that may be holding you down, and one way to do that is through journaling. Taking a few minutes at the end of the day to write down whatever thought comes to mind. This will give you, not only a better understanding of your thought process, but WHY you think what you think.

There are many steps you can take to improve your overall life, many not listed in this article, but, this article is a great starting point to be the best version of yourself- mentally, physically and emotionally.

Knowledge is power, but it’s powerless if you don’t act on it. This article is filled to the brim with knowledge, but it’s up to you to use the information to affect your life in a positive direction, so don’t keep waiting – get out there and do it.