Remember when you were a little kid and you used to dangle something out of the backseat window?

There was a certain thrill that came with holding the object close enough so that it didn’t fly into the wind, but also letting the grip be loose enough so there was the possibility it flew out the window.

These days, I treat my life like these moments I had as a kid.

Sometimes, in life, gripping onto something, or someone, too hard, creates a bunch of unnecessary anxiety in your life. In general, trying to keep too close of a grip over a life you ultimately can’t control, can keep you too rigid.

A quality life comes from both openness and detachment.

You’re open to having certain experiences, things, and people in your life.

But, you need nothing.

The things you want don’t own you.

You appreciate certain things and people, but you loosen up the grip just enough for the possibility of them to fly into the wind. You don’t own anyone, or anything, really. So stop trying.

Live the life you want to live without needing it to turn out exactly the want you want it to.

Become a Whole Person to Remove This Attachment

“True love is free of fear and characterized by non–attachment.” Dr David Hawkins

 

I once held a woman hostage.

She escaped once, but I caught her.

I set her free once, then I hunted her down again.

Finally, she escaped for good.

And both of us are in a much better place because of it.

I knew pretty early on in my relationship that we weren’t meant to be together, but I was attached. So was she.

We developed an extremely co-dependent relationship — the break-up, makeup, break-up, and makeup again. None of us wanted to be in it, but we needed to be in it, ya know?

These days, I hold no one hostage when it comes to relationships.

If we’re together, I want you to stay.

But the minute I can sense you no longer want to be there, I won’t stand in your way.

I don’t believe in finding your “other half.”

Two whole people can meet and the sum can become greater than the parts, but it’s never healthy to be in a position where need something to work.

This doesn’t mean you should become a commitment-phobe.

It means to stop holding onto shit when you know it’s not working.

Deep down, we all know.

We know when we’re not as into them as they are us and they’d be better off with someone else.

We know when the situation is reversed.

We know when we’re clinging to someone to avoid being lonely.

We know when we’re growing apart. We know when it’s worth working to fix and we know when it isn’t.

Once you know it’s time to pull the trigger, pull it.

It’s always better to do it sooner than later.

Stop Being Stingy

“You need to change your attitude towards money. Those who horde money never enjoy life. Savers live shit lives. And you only live once.” Andrew Tate

 

“You’re going to leave that much?!”

I get the same reaction when I’m out with friends or on a date.

I leave big tips.

I’m not trying to show off either.

I used to deliver pizzas and I liked getting big tips, so I return the favor in kind. Also tipping generously helps me rid myself of my attachment to money.

I’ve seen several suggestions to re-wire your attachment to money:

• Make an uncomfortably large donation
• Once a month, go all out on an extravagant experience even if you’re broke
• Tip the entire bill

Money tends to flow to people who take it less seriously.

They work hard for money, yes, but they find creative ways to do it.

Ways where they know it’ll keep coming to them instead of having to grind themselves to the bone for it.

Think about it, some people work really really hard, but their attachment to money keeps them from ever having it.

They’re scared to lose it so they never take risks like investing or funding a business.

Money likes people an abundance mindset.

The ones who see money as scarce never seem to have enough of it.

You have to make a budget and it’s good to be wise with your money, but if you cling to it too tight, you create this weird frugal energy that will keep you stuck in a financial box.

Don’t Become a Slave to the Fruits of Your Labor

“You are not your job, you’re not how much money you have in the bank. You are not the car you drive. You’re not the contents of your wallet. You are not your fucking khakis.” — Chuck Palahniuk

 

So let’s say you start to have an abundant mindset with money and start making more of it.

Don’t turn around and create a prison with that money from the things you spend it on.

Materialism is this weird trap we’re all caught up in.

We all want nice things.

It’s okay to have nice things.

But it’s very easy for the things you own to end up owning you.

I used to live in a shitty rat-infested apartment.

Now I live in a nice townhome.

I used to drive a beater I bought from a car auction for $2,500. Now I drive a brand new car.

I used to dress like a scrub and now I have a closet full of outfits.

Yes, it’s nice.

It’s objectively better to have a leveled-up situation.

But I try to remind myself that there isn’t a certain point where I can stop:

The hardest but most important financial skill is getting the goalpost to stop moving. — Morgan Housel

It’s nice to have nice things, but these things don’t matter either.

They don’t make me a better person than anything else.

They don’t really change the way I feel inside.

Only I can do that.

Enjoy nice things, but don’t use them to fill a void because that void is a black hole that will swallow everything you throw inside of it.

These days, I look at money mostly as a tool to give me the time and freedom to enjoy life. I walk around malls now and don’t really want anything.

Money gives me peace.

Let it give you peace.

Fuck the Joneses.

Kill Your (Former) Self

“Becoming psychologically flexible is key to personal transformation, not over attaching to your current identity or perspectives. Becoming insatiably committed to a future purpose and embracing emotions rather than avoiding them is how radical change occurs.” — Benjamin Hardy

 

As cliche as it sounds, you can literally just wake up one day and decide you want to be someone else.

Easier said than done, obviously, but you don’t owe your past self anything.

You don’t have to cling to it just because you’ve lived a certain way for a long time.

Maybe you’re not shy.

Just start talking to people.

Maybe you’re not the person who never finishes anything. Just find the right project.

Maybe you’re not weak.

Start standing up for yourself.

People love to argue for their own limitations.

I see it all the time.

“But you don’t understand Ayo!”

No, I do. You don’t. You’re too attached to yourself.

You think you’re this person with this certain personality.

Your personality is formed by your DNA a bunch of chance experiences — variables that could’ve flipped an entirely different way.

You can’t change your DNA, but you don’t have to let it define you.

You can create a whole new set of experiences and variables that can turn you into somebody new.

But you have to let your old self go.

I know it’s scary.

I know it feels like death.

It is death.

If you kill your past self, you get to live many lives in one life.

You’re allowed to pivot at any time and you’re never beholden to who you once were.

You’ll Always Care, But It Doesn’t Matter

“No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.” Elanor Roosevelt

 

There’s one prison that keeps us from ever truly changing our lives.

Our biggest attachment.

We’re too attached to the opinions of other people.

Your attachment to what others think keeps you from risking rejection and embarrassment.

It makes you create a facade instead of being who you really are.

Instead of moving through life freely, you’re constantly walking on eggshells.

How do you fix this?

I’ll let you know when I’ve figured that out.

I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m always going to care what people think about me.

I stopped waiting for that point where I’ll never care to do the things I want to do with my life.

It works that way with a lot of emotions.

You try to repress them instead of just allowing yourself to feel them.

If you’re anxious, be anxious.

If you’re scared be scared.

They are just feelings.

I’ve been rejected and embarrassed.

It sucks, but the feeling fades quickly.

I’ve rubbed people the wrong way by being myself, but that means they were never a good fit in the first place.

I care what you think about my writing, else I’d keep it all in a journal.

But I’m not going to let a negative comment or two keep me from sharing my thoughts with the world.

We’re just two people looking at a screen.

No big deal.

If you want to read, read.

If not, don’t.

The globe will keep on spinning.

It’ll keep spinning and all the while the people on it are moving so fast and are so preoccupied with themselves they don’t even care about what you’re doing anyway.

Remember that.

We don’t do things randomly.

There’s a reason behind every action we take, a brain process that has determined what’s our next move.

Lucky you, this process isn’t a secret, and you can learn how to trigger it whenever you want.

I’m going to show you how to put yourself in the driver’s seat of your life.

Your actions won’t be an accident or irregular anymore.

You’ll have the power to choose.

The techniques I’m going to show you have one secret: They are almost effortless.

Once you have adopted them, your body will beg you to do them.

I think this is the only possible way if we want to stick to a plan for the long haul.

You can’t be fighting against yourself each morning to wake up early or to do anything else.

You’ll get angry, emotionally burned, and you won’t last long.

That’s all for promises today. Let’s get down to business!

“You have power over your mind — not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.” — Marcus Aurelius.

 

So far, I’ve found 2 different techniques that work exceptionally well.

I’m going to explain the basis of each one and how to use it.

Luckily, at the end of this article, you’ll count on 2 powerful weapons to craft your perfect day.

I’ve seen people use one, or all of them at the same time.

It’s really a personal thing, finding out what works for you.

Maybe you stick to one and don’t even consider the other, or you require power from them all.

Let’s begin with the first one: Personality.

1. The power of the personality

When we grow up, our brain learns about thousands of different behaviors, including those from our parents, teachers, friends, etc.

We need to feel identified with a personality to know what to do in each situation. We need organization and order in the way we behave. So we adopt the character that applies more influence on us (usually our parents).

Imagine someone hitting you in the face for no reason.

Is your brain identified with aggressiveness, kindness…what do you consider yourself?

The answer will tell you how your reaction to the punch will be.

If your personality is aggressive, and you were raised into thinking you were aggressive, your response will not be the same as a person who considers himself extremely polite and peaceful.

People are inseparable from who they think they are, and they will try to evade or eliminate anything that proves them wrong.

 

Have you ever been in a conversation when the other person won’t agree with you even when you got all the facts by your side?

Consider if he, changing his opinion, would have left their personality behind.

It happened

I usually promote my articles on Reddit, especially in communities that I know can help the users.

So one of the last articles was named “You are not an introvert, and I’ll show you why.” In what community did I post it?

Yes, in the “Introvert” community, where 287k members who consider themselves introverts gather together.

Basically, I was making a direct attack on their personality, jeopardizing who they were. And they did defend.

They weren’t going to let someone even to question who they were.

So, meanwhile, I was receiving positive and encouraging comments in other Reddit communities (5 or 6) where I had posted this same article.

I’ll show you what the comments were from the “Introverts” community:

So, what’s the catch?

Listen carefully:

If you allocate your desired behavior right into your personality, your body and mind will fight to maintain it that way.

 

For example, Cristiano Ronaldo sees himself as a top athlete and a hard worker.

It’s part of his personality, so he will work out because he needs to do it.

Training is part of who he is!

He doesn’t have the guts to call himself a hard worker and then don’t do sh*t.

Want to do sport?

Consider yourself an athlete.

Buy sports stuff, follow sports people on Instagram, tell your friends you’ve been doing sport for a month straight (it doesn’t have to be true).

Remember yourself who you have become now, do the things that a person with that character would do, and sooner or later, it would be ingrained into your body harder than a root in the soil.

The trick here is to give yourself reasons why you are an athlete, an intelligent person, an early bird, or whatever. And if you don’t have any, create them and feel identified with them.

At one point, your body won’t accept any behavior different than the desired one, that is one integrated deep into you.

2. I’m a ruthless believer

It’s not reality that shapes us, but the lens through which we view the world that shapes our reality — Shawn Achor.

 

What we honestly believe, comes true, at least for us.

Okay, I can’t say this without looking like a Mr. Wonderful employee.

But it is so true.

Everyone has a set of beliefs, and they see their world through that lenses.

I’ll start with an exaggerated example:

A 50-year-old guy saw his father living until his 90’s without doing any exercise whatsoever.

Because of this, he has a strong belief that doing sport to live longer is just bullsh*t.

He lives with that view of the world, which affects his actions because he will not even consider entering a gym.

One day he has a heart attack, and his doctor tells him that if he doesn’t exercise, he will die before the new year.

His old belief is completely destroyed, and there’s a new one: Exercise is necessary to survive.

He spent the rest of his life exercising because of that belief, doesn’t matter if the doctor was wrong or right.

After all, he lives in the same world before and after the heart attack.

But he saw things differently, he believed in entirely opposite things. And that made him move.

You can believe anything you want, anything that empowers you.

A few months ago, I needed to wake up really early to finish all my tasks before 5:00 PM so that I could go to the QA class I had just enrolled in.

There was no way I could be up before 10 AM, and I needed to be on my feet at least 4 hours before that.

So one way or another, I had to believe one of these:

1. If I don’t do it, something terrible will happen.
2. If I do it, something very good will happen.

Going to the QA class just wasn’t enough motivation, so I started looking for reasons to force my brain into believing that doing it would be extremely beneficial.

If you search, you eventually find.

So I found 10+ reasons on google on why to wake up early.

I discovered so many good things about it that my brain couldn’t live without all that benefit!

I also looked for the awaking time of some of my idols to encourage myself even more.

Now I knew a lot of benefits that I didn’t know (feeling more awake, actually a contradiction, more silence, better wifi, time to relax and do everything at a normal pace), and I felt like I was waking up at the same time of people that actually changed the world (not that I will, but everything helps).

So at this point, I had a new belief:

I couldn’t live without the benefits of being an early bird. So long after I finished that QA class, I still wake up at 6 AM no matter when or where.

Don’t hesitate to put these two behavior monsters in action, and make them work for you.

You’ll need to put a little effort at the start, but soon you realize that they are carrying you by themselves.

We crucify ourselves between two thieves: regret for yesterday and fear of tomorrow.

Fulton Oursler

 

I have been fortunate enough to work with some amazing people in my career.

I don’t mean nurses; I am referring to my patients.

I have been a nurse for 16 years.

Working in intensive care and medical-surgical units.

I spent a lot of time with my patients and enjoyed having deep meaningful conversations in critical times of their lives.

Many of them would tell me all their friends have died and their families do not talk to them.

They were seen as either a “burden or old”.

This broke my heart, plus I loved to ask them all kinds of questions about their lives.

It was a walk down memory lane for them and for me it was knowledge.

We take the elderly for granted in our society when we should honor them.

They have so much knowledge.

Believe me — I’ve done very good stuff and very crazy stuff, and I don’t regret the crazy stuff. Jean-Claude Van Damme

What do you regret most in your life and what would you do differently if you had the chance?

Often in my life, I have been at a crossroads.

I want a new job, or to change areas in the hospital.

Travel the world, how can I do this, how do I know which decision is right?

So I would ask my patients these questions.

I was happy to get advice on issues that I was having in my life.

It was almost like free therapy.

Take a minute and sit with an older person, ask them for their advice.

I guarantee you it will help you out.

I have had patients tell me they regretted having kids!

I was at a critical stage in my life, and I was conflicted should I have kids, even though I don’t want them.

Thinking I was broken because I did not want them.

I never expected the answers I received.

Most of them said kids were the biggest mistake of my life, yea I love them, but they did not better my life.

Now they don’t talk to me, I am a burden to them or they were the opposite and said the kids don’t leave me alone.

They think I can do nothing on my own.

The resounding answer was you need to be 100% certain you want them.

If you are on the fence, do not have them because you feel obligated.

Patients regretted not doing what they wanted with their life.

They lived their life for someone else.

Whether it was their spouse, their children, or their parents.

A lot of the women said they wished they stood up and divorced their husbands, but it was the 50s and life was different.

They said never settle.

Do not let anyone tell you that you can’t do something.

Do it anyway and learn from your own mistakes.

They regretted staying in careers that they did not enjoy instead of chasing their dreams when they had the chance.

Some wanted to pursue different careers.

Their family would tell them that is not a good decision.

Their friends would not support them and tell them they would fail.

So they never took the new job and stayed in a career they hated until they retired.

These were always my bitter old man patients and a tough nut to crack, but I have my ways and ended up being my favorite patients.

Live a life that you want, because it will work out, or not, you have to try.

If you want to change your career, do it.

Do not wait, because there might never be a tomorrow.

A lot of them said they woke up one day, and they were old and dying.

Never wait to do what you want because that day may never come.

 

When I was deciding to travel, I was a mess.

Should I quit my job, should I leave my family and friends.

Is it going to be the biggest mistake in my life?

So I did as I always did.

I talked to those who are wiser and have lived-my patients.

I met this guy who told me about his travels to Japan and living in Asia teaching English for 15 years. He said it was the best experience of his life and he never regretted choosing differently.

He said his family thought he was crazy, but he did it anyway.

He said you are a nurse.

You will always have a job, you have nothing to lose.

I have also had many other patients tell me this. I was obsessed with living my dream for about 5 years before I did it.

When I talked to my friends and family, it was a resounding, Sara you have lost your mind.

Why would you leave a good job, and your friends and family to traipse around the world?

I said because I want to.

If you do not do it now you never will and that is the one thing you will regret.

You will not regret putting your career on pause.

You will gain more from traveling seeing the world.

They spoke from experience.

I met women traveling in their 50–60–70’s who say the only regret in life was not doing it sooner.

Life is not about money, fame, or success.

Life is about experiences.

I don’t care if your dream is to go to Niagara Falls or Iguazu Falls.

Do not put off what you want to do, because what if?

What if you die tomorrow?

What if you don’t die and are 98 years old and the only thing in life you regret is not doing what you want?

I know what you are thinking.

Not everyone can just do whatever they want at all times.

You are correct in this if you believe it.

I believe I can do whatever I want and it will always work out.

Why?

Because it has always worked out for me.

It may not have been the way I imagined or what I wanted but it is better.

It might be what I need, instead of want.

Life has a way of changing and redirecting when you follow your genuine desires.

Your intuition, your gut, that feeling that just does not go away.

Would you rather try something and fail or never try to and wonder?
I would rather try to and fail than to wonder what if?

My life has not been the easiest, but that was my life path.

I have overcome so many hardships and I would never change it.

I like who I am.

The struggled that came with living are worth it.

These struggles have strengthened me today.

Do not put off something because what if.

If there is something that you want to do, make it happen.

Regret is the worst feeling in the world.

These are not my words, but the words of 100’s of patients that I have taken care of.

 

One last regret from many patients is they regret not forgiving.

They regret staying angry and ruining friendships and relationships over pettiness.

Sometimes the ego gets in the way and we can not get past it. Forgiveness and gratitude are the ways forward.

Do not take these above regrets to your grave.

I have never regretted my decision to quit a 6 figure salary to travel the world, I would choose it again and again if I had to decide.

So what are you putting off for tomorrow?

Will tomorrow ever come?