Today I’m giving you four lessons that’ll help you stop procrastinating, communicate better, shift your perspective, and stop letting other people’s anger control you.
Let’s go...
#1 - Oil on the Canvas
“You don’t have to paint a masterpiece each day, you just have to put some oil on the canvas.” - Brendan Burchard
Procrastination is one of the biggest killers of progress, and one of the main reasons is trying to get everything done in a day.
The key to success is “chunking things down”
and committing to doing it every single day.
Here’s what this looks like in practice:
Don’t try to get 30 books read in a year. Commit to one chapter a day, and you’ll hit that 30-book goal by November.
Don’t try to lose weight. Think of ways you can get an extra 2,000 steps a day and make a commitment to that. If nothing else changed, you would have accumulated 730,000 extra steps in a year, equivalent to 21,900 calories, which is 6.2lbs of body weight.
If you commit to putting a little oil on the canvas each day, you’ll have a masterpiece pretty soon.
Stop trying to do everything today.
Start doing something small every single day.
#2 - Help, Heard, Hugged?
Earlier this year, I interviewed with New York Times Best Selling Author Sahil Bloom, and he had an incredible process that he uses when friends come to him with a problem:
“Do you want help? To be heard? Or to be hugged?”
Help
Sometimes people will come to you with a problem they are looking to solve.
Don’t forget to ask them if they would like help fixing the problem, because they might want to be heard.
Heard
Sometimes people just want to be heard.
They want someone they can rely on to clear the air and listen to their fears and frustrations without judgment.
Hugged
Sometimes people don’t want help or to be heard.
They’re going through something really shitty at the moment, and all they need is a good old hug.
You’ll be amazed at how much this helps when others are feeling like this.
This is such an effective process to use with those close to you.
Find your “hearers,” “helpers,” and “huggers,” and don’t forget to ask for them yourself from time to time.
Stop assuming you know what people need.
Start asking them.
#3 - Looking Through Prison Bars
I heard a quote years back that stuck with me:
“Two men looked through prison bars, one saw mud, the other saw stars.”
Embrace the power of perspective, for it holds the key to unlocking your potential.
By shifting your mindset and discovering new viewpoints, you can transform challenges into opportunities and setbacks into lessons.
By changing your perception of what happens to you, you’ll empower yourself to navigate life with resilience and optimism.
Remember: It’s not the world that defines you, but rather the lens through which you choose to view it.
You can’t control what happens to you in life, but you can control how you look at the situation.
It’s only in darkness that you can see the stars.
#4 - Accepting Angry Gifts
In a small town, a man was giving a speech when a young man began shouting insults.
Instead of getting angry, he asked the young man:
“If you buy a gift for someone and they don’t accept it, who does it belong to?”
The young man replied that it would still belong to him.
The man explained that the same applies to anger.
If someone is angry and the other person doesn’t accept the hostility, the anger remains with the angry person, hurting only themself.
Lesson: Don’t surrender to anger or let others take your personal power.
Reflect their actions and protect your higher self, as the only person affected by negativity is the one projecting it.
When someone tries to give you the gift of their anger, don’t accept it.
Let them keep it.
These aren’t complicated concepts…
They’re simple truths that most people ignore.
Stop doing this:
Trying to do everything at once and getting overwhelmed
Assuming you know what people need without asking
Letting circumstances control your perspective
Accepting other people’s anger as if it’s yours to carry
Start doing this:
Put oil on the canvas every day - small, consistent actions win
Ask people: “Do you want help, to be heard, or to be hugged?”
Choose to see stars instead of mud, even when things are dark
Refuse to accept the gift of someone else’s anger
Progress isn’t about painting masterpieces every day.
It’s about showing up consistently and putting in the work!
Jay Alderton