by Matt Weik
Not everyone comes out of the womb with a silver spoon in their hand. For the majority of us, we have to scratch, claw, and fight for everything we want in life. Yet, some people expect things to simply be handed to them, and when they aren’t, it’s the world’s fault in their eyes – not their own. These people look in the mirror and are unhappy with what they see. They aren’t pleased with where they are in life. Many of them don’t know what to do. We all have choices to make with our life. And if you want to improve your life, you’re going to need to change your situation.
Stop Hanging Out with Losers
“Oh my gosh, Matt, you’re such a bully!” Easy there, Frank. If you took offense to that, you’re probably the person who should be reading this article the most. Listen, if you hang out with bad people, what do you think your life will look like? If you want to improve your life, you need to upgrade the people you surround yourself with. When you hang out with losers, they don’t want you to have a great life. They want you to stick around and stay at their level because they’re complacent and don’t want to work hard to change their situation or improve their life. Misery loves company.
Find yourself some new friends and put together a new circle full of people you aspire to be like. People you can learn from and who will force you to improve your life, or they’ll remove you from their own circle.
Change Your Mindset
The way you think can improve your life (or cause you to fall into a downward spiral). If you’re the glass is half empty type of person, you need to start taking a different vantage point on life. You might not be the smartest person – but you’re willing to work hard, learn, and improve. You might not be the most handsome person – but you’re willing to put in the work at the gym and change your nutritional behaviors. You might not be the most successful person – but you’re willing to put in the work and change your situation.
By simply changing your mindset from “I’m not able to do this” to “How can I do this” is a massive step in the right direction. Stop selling yourself short due to negative self-talk. If you can change your thinking from you can’t to I can or how can I, you will completely change your thought process and mindset.
Life is About Choices
80% of millionaires are self-made. That leaves only 20% who were given that silver spoon by mommy and daddy (or a previous generation who left money for them). Now, I’m not going to go down the path of talking about money and whether or not it means anything to you, but the individuals who make up that 80% had some tough decisions to make. Do you think all of them were raised in a family that had money? No. In fact, many of them were brought up extremely poor. They made the choice to change their situation and improve their life. They know exactly what it feels like and looks like to grow up poor. And that feeling is what motivated them to say they never want to feel that way ever again. It’s about choices.
Your personal success is in your own hands. It’s not in the hands of your parents. It’s not in the hands of your boss or your employer. It’s in yours. No one makes decisions for you. So, if you are unhappy, do something about it. Change your situation and level-up.
Not everyone has the luxury of going to college and furthering their education. That doesn’t mean you’ll never be successful, hold an executive position with a company, make a ton of money, or even start your own business. In today’s world, you have almost everything you need right in your hand – a smartphone. A smartphone today is the most powerful device you can own. You can do everything from it. Anything you want or need is at your fingertips. On the job training or learning new skills from websites like YouTube or SkillShare.com are extremely powerful, and your smartphone can be the vehicle.
Success isn’t something that can be given. No one is going to hand it to you. It must be earned through hard work. Sure, winning the lottery can change many circumstances and situations. But at the end of the day, you’re banking on a one in several hundreds of millions chance of it happening. You’d have a higher probability of being born with extra fingers or toes, accidentally suffocating in bed, having quintuplets naturally, or getting killed by fireworks. Moral of the story, don’t bank on getting lucky. Be prepared to work your face off for everything you want in life.
Stop sitting back and watching everyone else walk on you to get to their dreams while you are left sitting there crying in the corner, thinking life isn’t fair. Take charge of your life. Take command of your future. Change your situation… improve your life!
