Dear friend,

Who is holding you back in life?

Is it your partner? Your work? Your lack of money or resources?

Or is it yourself— your lack of self-confidence, your lack of focus, or your lack of initiative?

You control your future

Know that you have control over your destiny in life. Your life is short. You make the decisions today, for your tomorrow.

What is holding you back?

What if it all depended on you?

An experiment I’ve been doing to myself: imagine that everything is in my control.

For example, if I don’t earn enough money, it isn’t society’s fault— it is my fault.

If Cindy gets angry at me, it isn’t her fault— it is my fault.

If my photography isn’t progressing as I wish it is, it isn’t because my camera isn’t good enough — it is because I’m not innovating enough.

If I feel that I don’t have enough time to do meaningful and creative work — it isn’t because of others. It is because I fail to filter out the distractions in my life.

How to gain control of your life

So friend, what is holding you back from becoming the best version of yourself?

If you don’t know, here are some suggestions that I’ve personally used to gain more control in my life:

1. Say “no”:

I am horrible at saying no, because I always want to please others. But if you want more control in your life, you need to learn how to say “no” more often.

A good way to say “no” without sounding like a prick — tell people, “Thank you so much for the offer, but my bandwidth is currently maxed out. I appreciate you of thinking about me.”

2. Purposeful procrastination

I feel in life, we procrastinate on what isn’t important to us.

Society wants to guilt us for procrastinating. But most things we procrastinate on aren’t important to us.

A question to think to yourself: “If I died tonight, would I regret procrastinating on this or not?”

Not only that, but nobody this to be written on their tombstone:

Here lies John, he answered all his emails.

What can you procrastinate on, and what more meaningful or purposeful work can you work on instead?

3. Never blame others

The last thing which I touched upon earlier is to never blame others.

As an assignment: pretend like you had 100% control of your destiny for a week. Never blame others; only blame yourself.

Then what changes would you make in your life, to take positive action to create the life you want for yourself?

Conclusion

 

Nobody is holding you back. So go forth and become the best version of yourself today.

Always,
Eric

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