The older we get, the fewer illusions we experience and the less often we put on the notorious “rose-colored” glasses.
By the age of 30, most of us have learned our lessons and comprehended the seemingly simple truths of life, some of which turn out to be quite cruel.
But he presents them to us Life itself with the goal of making it wiser and more experienced.
The cruel truth of life
1. Shyness and uncertainty do not help in life.
Remember your school days. When we were afraid to raise our hand in class just because “everyone is looking at you.”
We blushed the moment our pen dropped in class and felt awkward if we were treated to something, because we were afraid of looking “something wrong” in the eyes of others.
Or we blushed when listening to congratulations on our birthday, as well as in other situations when even the slightest attraction of attention to our person was implied.
Shyness and self-doubt are frequent companions of childhood and especially the transition period.
But one day there comes a time when you realize that “shyness” is not an excuse and it’s absolutely not worth carrying this trait with you into adulthood. Leave it in the past.
Now remember your thoughts about a person who averts his eyes during a conversation, or avoids greeting, or, when in company, does not insert even a couple of phrases into the conversation.
It is unlikely that you will want to continue communicating with such an interlocutor, and you are unlikely to think of him as a shy or timid person.
Most likely, you have a not entirely pleasant impression of him.
Therefore, as we grow older, we, as a rule, become more confident in ourselves and discard unnecessary timidity and embarrassment.
Time to change your life
2. Nothing will change on its own unless you put effort into it.
You shouldn’t wait for the weather by the sea and hope that everything will be resolved on its own.
If you don't put effort into something, everything will remain at the same level and in the same place.
Whenever some interesting opportunity appears on the horizon, be it new project, new job, a date or a new apartment, it’s worth pushing yourself to start something new.
And then continue to make efforts to ensure that the new endeavor ends successfully.
If you want something different, to change your life, try, look, change.
Of course, you can wait long and tediously for changes to happen without your direct participation, but most likely it will be a useless wait.
Remember: things that fall from the sky are rarely worthwhile or good.
Truths of human life
3. Everything in life is temporary
You must always remember that everything in life is temporary. You will only be at this age, in this place, in this job, with this team, in this state of health, once.
Therefore, if you are not happy with something at this stage of life, and you do not feel comfortable, remember that it will pass.
Again, refer to the previous point: is something going wrong? Make an effort to change what you are not happy with.
If, on the contrary, everything is going fabulously well in life, be grateful for it and enjoy the moment.
Never lie
4. Never lie
No matter how trite it may sound, but... NEVER lie.
It's simple: the truth is always the same. By telling it, you will never get confused, while by lying, you will not end up with problems later when this truth is revealed.
Remember books, films. All the problems and troubles for the heroes began precisely because of lies.
The harsh truth of life
5. If you don't show up, people stop inviting you.
One of the most difficult moments in life is getting up and going to work every day without fail. Most often we force ourselves to do this.
The second hardest part in life is trying to muster up the remaining energy to be a socially active person.
Of course, the easiest thing to do after a long day of work is to isolate yourself from everything and just relax.
However, remember that the logic of those around you is quite simple: they turn to people who are open to communication.
If you are closed off and never go anywhere, people will simply stop inviting you.
6. You need to ask for what you want.
Continuing the theme of timidity and self-doubt, it is worth adding: you should always ask for what you want.
Forget your childhood fears that they will somehow look at you or think badly if, for example, in a restaurant you ask to replace one sauce with another.
Remember: you have almost no chance of getting what you want unless you ask and ask about it. Unfortunately, few people have psychic abilities and are able to guess what you want.
7. People don't look at us as closely as we think they do.
A funny case-experiment on this topic:
For a month, one of the company’s employees wore the same set of clothes, consisting of six items.
A couple of weeks later, her colleague working at the same table complimented her on her beautiful dress.
To which the surprised woman replied that she had worn this dress at least ten times during this month.
What does this mean?
About the fact that few people notice such insignificant details as shoes or what you are wearing.
8. What and who you are is your own choice.
If you are always late, have a bad understanding of, say, geography, or are addicted to your phone, you need to understand that these are not innate character traits, they are what you choose for yourself.
Not good at math? Get a tutor or buy textbooks and try to understand a complex topic.
If you are running late, you can leave home 10-15 minutes earlier to be at your destination on time.
In a word: work on yourself, improve yourself and don’t look for various excuses and justifications for your disadvantages and failures.
And if there is something in your life that you are not particularly proud of, change it.
9. You have to take care of yourself
Remember how your mother took care of you as a child? So, unfortunately, you can forget about such care on the part of other people.
If you don't take care of yourself, no one will. This applies to any aspect of life.
No one will feed you healthy food until you start doing it yourself. No one is going to monitor what you visit gym and trained regularly. No one will make an appointment for you to see a doctor until you deign to do so.
If you don't do all this yourself, no one will do it for you.
Conclusions about life
10. Keep your promises
Deliver what you promise.
Be where you promised to be. Do everything on time, as promised.
If you are not going to do something or are not sure that you will do it, it is better not to promise anything.
No one is trying to force you to make empty promises.
There's nothing worse than a man who does not fulfill them. In the eyes of others, a person who makes empty promises looks pathetic and useless.
Childhood will end someday, because it is not forever...we all sang in chorus, deep down hoping that childhood would fly by faster, and we would finally become adults and independent.
Who hasn’t dreamed of growing up quickly and deciding everything for themselves? Most often, of course, our childhood expectations were related to buying ten servings of our favorite ice cream or riding on the carousel until the park closed, but it seemed to us that adults were constantly lecturing us on purpose and forcing us to do all the most boring and unnecessary things, but the most interesting things, Unfortunately, they prohibit it. Therefore, when there were too many prohibitions, we stopped listening to any instructions and began to reject even the most reasonable advice from parents, teachers and the adults around us.
Now that we have already matured and can safely look back to analyze the events of our childhood, it would not be amiss to once again recall the most important advice and instructions from the past. You will be surprised, but not everything that our parents, grandmothers and teachers said was devoid of common sense.
Now that youthful maximalism no longer pushes us onto the path of eternal rebellion and arguments for the sake of arguments, we are ready to admit that sometimes the thoughts “but mom talked about this”, “but Tatyana Petrovna was right” pop up in our heads, and we are ready start applying some of the recommendations already in adulthood.
Always say thank you. The child begins to be told that he needs to be polite from the moment he tries to pronounce his first words. “Tell your aunt thanks for the apple!” “Thank your uncle for the car!” And so the kid, distorting the words, tries to thank the adult for not asking him to give or bring him something. Often they have good intentions for raising their child reverse effect, because they form an internal protest in the child against this kind of manipulation.
In adult life, it will not be amiss to find a rational grain in this parental attitude and realize that one can and should be grateful for a real service or favor rendered. The modern rhythm of life turns us into callous consumers, expecting that the whole world owes and owes us. A short “thank you” sent in an instant message not only looks rude, but also deprives us of at least one potential assistant in the future.
Don't be greedy. Adults put a lot of effort into teaching us to share. Usually, parents believe that by teaching their child to give everyone molds in the sandbox and part with his favorite dump truck without a roar, they have fulfilled their parental mission of teaching the child not to be greedy. Sometimes, in order for a child to show generosity, he is dragged immediately after the playground to a store, where he sweeps sweets and toys from the shelves, choosing a reward for his generosity of soul.
Of course, the ability to negotiate and exchange toys with other children lays the foundations of communication, but has nothing to do with generosity. A child who easily gives away his things may simply be inattentive and not remember at all what toys his mother brought to the playground, and the one who clutches his favorite scoop will not necessarily grow up greedy and stingy; perhaps he is still too young to understand the principles exchange and is still strongly attached to a specific thing.
But in the “don’t be greedy” attitude there is another, more deep meaning. It would be good to learn in your mature years not to be stingy with emotions, to be able to share your thoughts and feelings with others, so that friendship does not turn into an endless exchange of goods and mutually beneficial relationships.
Don't be friends with bad boys. The bad mother is the one who didn’t dream of locking her daughter, like the beautiful Rapunzel, in a high tower so that no bad boy could get to her little princess.
Not a little literary works is devoted to the description of subsequent events, when parental prohibitions have the opposite effect and “good” girls throw in their lot with “bad” guys.
In fact, the correct message would be "be friends with bad boys". True, in order to withstand the period of such friendship, parents will have to stock up on packs of sedatives, but the result will exceed all expectations. You need to be friends with “bad” boys in childhood, at least in order to understand that climbing over fences, chasing a ball and ramming each other on bicycles is a lot of fun with them, but it is better to maintain friendly relations with them in adulthood.
When for a girl there is no romantic aura around hooligan guys, she can have a fairly sober idea of what to expect from them in family life. And in the case when a girl for many years is deprived of the opportunity to chase the neighbor's cat and laugh at stupid jokes with her reckless classmates, she tries to make up for lost time in adulthood.
Usually such experiments end in failure. family relationships, which can no longer be corrected with one pack of sedatives.
Learn for yourself. How such a phrase irritated us as children. It seemed to us that our parents were simply brushing us off and that they were not interested in our school life. If parents do not use such a postulate to shift all responsibility to little man, they are really right in that they are preparing a good foundation for him for the future.
When a child develops the right motivation to learn something new, the leading incentive will be interest and new opportunities that open up with the acquisition of a particular skill, and not parental praise or any material reward.
An adult with a constant desire to learn and experience something new can rarely lose interest in life or stop working in a situation where there is no praise from others.
Don't read other people's letters. No matter how strong the temptation may be to learn other people's secrets from a handwritten diary or online correspondence, those adults who did not advise us to do this are right.
Even if we omit the moral side of the issue, such a habit can play a cruel joke on us and destroy even the best relationships. A person who is accustomed to learning the secret thoughts of a partner not in a personal conversation or developing his powers of observation and empathy risks at one fine moment being left alone with such information that he simply will not be able to accept and process.
By gaining access to the hidden thoughts of another person in such an unfair way, we enter into a very dangerous game called “I think I know the real you.” Rarely does anyone manage to get out of such a situation with honor and dignity; more often than not, the truth comes out and continuing communication as if nothing had happened becomes simply impossible.
Formulate your thought. How many times have we heard this expression in our youth from our parents or teachers. When we, choking from overwhelming emotions, confusedly talked about winning the school relay race, or got excited, shouting fragmentary phrases about how wrong all our friends were, we were suddenly interrupted by an adult: “I don’t understand anything, formulate your thought clearly and clearly.” "
And now, with less enthusiasm, but with more information content, we tried to clearly explain to an uncomprehending adult what really happened.
In literature lessons, sometimes it was tedious and boring, and sometimes it was cheerful and dynamic, the teachers tried to explain to us how to answer questions correctly, draw up a story plan and, in the end, simply convey our thoughts to our interlocutor.
The ability to accurately and concisely formulate our thoughts opens many doors for us in adult life. A specialist who can create a concise and understandable description of a product or service, convey the most important things to the client in a few sentences and communicate succinctly with his superiors, is valued in any professional field.
Acquaintances who, in a few minutes, help you “sort out” your chaotic thoughts and organize the chaos in your head, are usually respected and try to involve you in discussions more often.
And sometimes it doesn’t hurt to clearly recognize and formulate our own thoughts, even if we don’t intend to convey them to our interlocutor.
In fairness, I would also like to recall some useless advice from our childhood that everyone received at one time or another during their golden age.
Don't wrinkle your forehead. It's hard to imagine more useless and at the same time widespread advice. The presence of facial wrinkles, which so irritate compassionate parents and relatives, does not depend in any way on how flexible the child’s facial expressions are. Sometimes wrinkles on the forehead appear from childhood, so you should rather be offended by genetics than by the mobility of your offspring’s facial muscles.
In addition, it is difficult to imagine how one can walk with a frozen face at any age, much less at an early age.
All things must be in their place. At first glance, the phrase sounds true, but who defines this “own” place? Imagine that a stranger sneaks into your room or office and determines the correct place for each item at his own discretion. Just the thought makes my eye twitch nervously.
The same thing happens to a child when, trying to teach him to be tidy, you arrange toys and school supplies in accordance with your idea of neatness and convenience.
It would be more productive to admit that even small child- this is not your copy, but a completely separate personality, and when teaching him discipline and order, it is worth taking into account his preferences and thoughts on this matter.
Everyone can't be wrong and you can't be the only one right. They can! This is even proven historical facts, associated with the well-known names of Nicolaus Copernicus, Galileo Galilei and many other researchers and discoverers.
Truth should not be determined by a majority of votes, but by the presence of arguments and evidence. It is more rational to teach a child to argue his point of view, and not just follow the crowd.
This is nonsense, don't worry! Another absolutely useless advice comes from childhood. If a child considers what happened to be nonsense, he is not worried anyway, but he can start, since an adult focuses attention on the problem.
And if the child is already worried, then your words will only upset him even more, since you do not take his problem seriously and instead of sympathy and discussion, you invite him to just pretend that nothing happened.
If, having become parents, we continue to remember our childhood, then the likelihood that our advice will resemble the droning of a stupid parrot, mindlessly repeating what it heard, will be minimal.
Unhealed childhood traumas lead to problems in a person’s personal and social life and can lead to mental illness.
For many parents, the books of the Swiss psychotherapist Alice Miller became a real revelation; they were able to take a different look at their childhood and reconsider their views on raising children.
Moralizing only leads children astray
The author claims that what is inherent in our childhood determines our actions and actions in adulthood. Unhealed childhood traumas lead to problems in a person’s personal and social life and can lead to mental illness.
Alice Miller was born in 1923 in Poland into a Jewish family.
The girl had terrible trials and great luck: she was lucky to get out of the ghetto and until the end of World War II she took refuge in a Catholic family.
After the war, she emigrated to Switzerland, where she received a doctorate in philosophy, psychology and sociology.
photo nikiboonphotos.com
Alice Miller devoted twenty years to the work of a psychoanalyst, and from the 70s she began to closely study the phenomenon of violence against children. Her book “The Drama of the Gifted Child,” dedicated to the study of childhood psychological trauma, became a worldwide bestseller.
1. A tyrant is a child traumatized in childhood, who was beaten and humiliated by his parents. If a person has been allowed to feel free and strong since childhood, then later he will not have the need to humiliate others.
2. Adults think that living soul baby poses a threat to their power.
3. Exactly what parents hide the child is most concerned about.
4. Children are forever traumatized. attached to their parents and do not reach emotional maturity.
5. Human soul It is practically indestructible, and its ability to be reborn from the ashes remains as long as the body breathes.
6. A person must have the right on your own true feelings and their expression.
7. For most people, the idea that their parents did not love them is simply unbearable. The more evidence of unloving, the more people cling to the illusion that they were loved.
8. Most people find it easier to die(literally or symbolically, through the murder of their feelings), rather than re-experience all the helplessness from which they suffered as children.
9. Demands to “behave well” have nothing to do with effective therapy or with life itself. For many people, these attitudes block the path to freedom.
10. The body uses depression as a way to protest against our betrayal of ourselves.
11. Moralizing only leads children astray. and blocks their path to self-knowledge. The body, after all, does not understand moral precepts.
12. Hypocrisy is a universal means of mastery human souls, including in pedagogy.
13. A liar cannot respect himself, and those who do not respect themselves do not respect others.
14. A parent’s anger is a consequence of his own problems. But the adult places the blame for them on the child.
15. Complete submission to the will of educators entails the readiness of an adult to completely submit to someone else's political will.
16. Any education is harmful.
17. People who are accustomed to silence suffer from this consciously or, more often, unconsciously.
18. The attitude of parents towards the child influences on the child’s subsequent attitude towards himself.
19. Inability to feel your own suffering, suffered in childhood, leads to the fact that a person may be immune to the suffering of others.
20. Bad behavior is one of the few ways which a child uses to punish an adult. published
“Work like a slave, rule like a king, create like a god” - this statement by the sculptor Brancusi sounds like the biography of Winston Churchill, “the greatest Briton in history”...
Read in this article how he managed to find his calling and achieve heights in various fields of activity, making life interesting and eventful.
Very often, growing up becomes synonymous with boring, monotonous work, which leaves no time for interests and hobbies. The result of such an “exchange” is predictable, but very sad: boredom, constant fatigue, anxiety and depression.
Unfortunately, many adults do not understand the real reasons for their depression and anxiety. They believe that fatigue comes from large quantity activities and try to focus on one activity, dismissing all others.
Using the example of Winston Churchill, his life credo and advice, you can see that it’s not about the quantity of activities, but about their quality: more interesting work, responsibilities that satisfy you, and opportunities to create something.
And now more about what the great prime minister advised and how he diversified his life.
Winston Churchill (1874-1965)
Politician, consummate orator, Prime Minister of Great Britain from 1940 to 1945, journalist, writer and laureate Nobel Prize according to literature. Named "the greatest Briton in history" in a 2002 BBC poll.
Work like a slave: take action and find your calling
Find a job that brings you pleasure (find it without searching)
Churchill divided the "sane, industrious and useful" part of the population into two parts:
...the first, for which work is work and pleasure is pleasure; and the second, for which work and pleasure are one and the same. Most people belong to the first group and receive their compensation. Long hours in an office or factory are rewarded with a livelihood and the desire for various pleasures, which often take very simple and modest forms.
But Fortune's favorites are people from the second group. Their lives pass in natural harmony, they never have enough set hours to work. Every day is a holiday for them, and ordinary holidays, on which they cannot work, are perceived as an annoying obstacle that prevents them from returning to their calling.
Now young people simply hate being in the first group and are eager to join the ranks of the second. But so far, all the advice on how to do this - look around and find your passion before choosing a profession or life's work - is just empty talk.
It is much better to look for your calling, completely surrendering to some passion. It’s not a fact that it will turn out to be your calling, but this way you will more accurately find the path to it. This is what happened with Churchill.
He developed deep love To English language and reading from early years, which foreshadowed his career as a writer. But other areas did not come so easily to him - he had to try hard to keep up in other subjects at school, and instead of attending university, he attended a military academy.
His career as a writer did not begin at an early age, but all because of the real passion of his life - war. Churchill wanted to get to the front in any military conflict, and when he was not allowed to participate in battles as a military man, he got a job as a newspaper correspondent in order to still get into the arena of military operations.
When the public liked his reports about what was happening, Churchill decided to write a book about his campaigns. And already in the process, he realized that the work of a writer brings him much more pleasure than a military career. This is how he found his calling.
That is, Churchill did not sit at home, endlessly reflecting and searching for his calling. He did what captivated him and brought him pleasure, and through this he found his true calling, and he was not alone.
Many people have found their life's work simply by trying what interests them at the moment.
There is another cool way to find your calling, thanks to which Churchill found the second passion of his life - politics.
Instead of going inward, wondering what to do, he turned his attention to the problems that existed around him. At that moment, the problem was the lack of a sufficient number of honest politicians with imagination. And he solved this problem by joining the ranks of politicians with his own person.
Finding current problems helps you start your own business. You find a problem and offer people a solution.
And most often, you begin to enjoy it not at the very beginning of the career or path you have chosen, but already in the process of development.
The world belongs to those who act
When work really grabs you, you don't notice how hours of hard work pass. And that's great, because without many, many hours of work, you will never achieve your goals.
In any field you can find these “gurus” who promise you quick results in the shortest possible time. But all their tricks and methods will never lead you to anything worthwhile. Yes, you can make some money using hacks, but it takes more than a few hours a week to create something reliable, functional (and legal). This requires constant and hard work.
If you decide to create something worthwhile, be it your personal project or a career in some company, from time to time you will have to experience the feeling that you are incredibly tired, but cannot finish it, because it is your project and you are interested in doing it. If you don't have such moments, you are doing something wrong.
Whatever field you choose, primacy in it will always belong to the one who constantly acts, works and worries.
Even a job you love still feels like work
There may be an opinion that if you love your job, then it is perceived as fun and you spend every day fun and easy. If sometimes this is not the case, then you simply chose the wrong job. This opinion is fundamentally wrong.
Even if you get a lot of pleasure from your work, it does not begin to be perceived as constant entertainment.
Churchill always separated work and play, considering them two very different things. A job you love is still a job, and that means you don't jump out of bed every day with joyful anticipation.
And this is normal, because pleasure and satisfaction are found not only in games and fun, but also in challenging one’s abilities and overcoming difficulties.
Sometimes you even want to quit your favorite job
The fact that you love your job doesn't mean you'll never have the thought of "screw it all," and it doesn't mean you don't sometimes want to quit and try something else.
Sometimes the task of writing something was not so easy for Churchill; on the contrary, it was unbearably difficult. When he had his own column, Churchill used to get into a terrible mood and show bad character traits, and when deadlines were pressing, the stress became simply unbearable.
The more your job suits you, the less often you experience these feelings and experience moments when you want to run away and do something else. The point is that such moments will still happen.
Look for opportunities in your free time
If you're currently doing something you hate (most of the time) and want to build a new career, start by looking for opportunities in your free moments.
Churchill wrote his first book in three-hour breaks while serving in India. At that time he was 23 years old, and all his military peers used this time to sleep or play cards. Churchill remained alone at this time and devoted his free hours to writing a book. The result of this decision was the beginning of his career in literature.
Many people started the same way: they devoted every free minute to a new interesting business, combining training or work in a company with work on their personal projects.
You don’t have to give up everything and completely immerse yourself in the business that you consider your calling. At first, it will be quite possible to combine it with other activities that are no less important at the moment.
Keep a routine
Churchill had a very strict daily routine, which made him incredibly productive. Creating and strictly adhering to your schedule will help you too, especially if you have enough tasks.
Concentrate
Churchill was incredibly productive, not so much because of the number of hours he worked, but because of the highest degree concentration. Lieutenant General Jan Jakob was simply amazed by his ability to concentrate on something:
When his mind is occupied with a specific problem, he is constantly focused on it and no one can distract him.
Concentration helps to gain a clear vision and purpose. Don't do work for the sake of work, always set a goal for yourself. Churchill always set himself challenges, such as writing a thousand words a day, to set work deadlines. And during the war, as Manchester wrote, “his attention was directed only to Hitler, to the exclusion of everything else.”
Know your goal clearly, plan your strategy carefully, execute your plan - and victory will be yours.
Rule Like a King: The Great Role of Leadership
There is only one drawback in this approach: such a desire to preserve youth denies one of the important features of childhood - the need to influence reality, to change something in this world.
When a child is just entering childhood, he really likes to press the buttons of the switch that turns on the light. This is one of the first experiences when you influence something and feel your innate ability to change this world.
Growing up, people often forget about this ability and the satisfaction that comes from controlling reality. We become spectators who have no influence on anything.
But every person still has this desire, an itch, which can be calmed only in one way - to accept obligations, because in obligations lies power.
If people refuse to commit and choose to remain children, they continue to “flip the switch”, only now their switch is a computer mouse.
They can choose from menu items, but that's where their power ends. If there aren't enough options on the menu, all they can do is complain about life. Meanwhile, power, no matter how strange it may seem, gives peace.
The leader, the one who controls the situation, is calmer than the one who simply obeys and is a follower.
Studies have shown that a military pilot experiences less stress during a flight when flying the plane on his own, all because he is in control of the situation. Therefore, even if the responsibility on you is high, in your soul more peace than those who prefer not to take on any responsibilities.
Thus, the energy of youth is not preserved by avoiding obligations and responsibilities.
The most pathetic adults constantly complain about the media, culture, politics and much more and yet believe that they can’t do anything about it. The most happy people On the contrary, they take on enormous responsibility and enjoy the opportunity to change something in this world.
Wherever you decide to become a leader—in your family, among friends, at work, or in a cultural environment—remember a few rules.
Refrain from making sacrifices, do not regret hard work, do not seek dirty gain and do not be afraid of ill-wishers. And everything will be fine.
Always be ready to lead
In 1930, when Churchill was already in his sixth decade, it seemed clear that his chances of ever becoming prime minister were zero. When a British delegation of MPs led by Lady Astor visited Soviet Union and met with Stalin in 1931, he asked them about the political situation in England and especially about Churchill. “Churchill? - Astor exclaimed with a contemptuous laugh. “Oh, his career is over.”
When everyone else thought that Churchill could no longer be taken into account, he himself was ready to serve and did not give up his dream - to become the head of Her Majesty's government. He watched Germany throughout the 1930s and never changed his position to please the general public.
Instead of changing to please society, he simply waited for the world to accept his truth, and it did.
And when he finally occupied the Prime Minister's office, he felt that he was following "his destiny" and that "his whole past life was a preparation" for the tasks that now confronted him. By remaining true to his convictions and monitoring German activity over the previous decade, he could confidently say that he would be good in his post.
My warnings over the past six years have been so numerous, so detailed, and now so monstrously justified, that no one can contradict me. I also cannot be accused of starting this war or wanting to prepare for it.
Winston Churchill
You are preparing to lead, not in the middle of the storm, but in the calm before it. Now everything may be fine in your family and your business may be thriving, but someday this may end. Are you ready to take responsibility, guide and lead?
Speak the language
Words have enormous power, if you know how to control your speech. When crafted correctly, powerful phrases and compelling arguments can literally change the world. Churchill argued that a person who speaks a language...
...possesses a power greater than that of the greatest king. He is an independent force in the world. Abandoned by his party, betrayed by his friends, deprived of his post, he can still control anyone with the help of this formidable power.
Be an example for your subordinates
Examples have even more power than words. Churchill didn’t just talk to the people, he seemed to have walked the path he was talking about. The strength of his moral standards was undeniable, and the strength of his character created an incredible effect. People could follow him to the ends of the earth.
Whether it's a father, a coach, a boss or a spiritual leader - example strong man A man who does the right thing is much more effective than hundreds of diatribes.
A leader who shows determination and courage does not even need passionate speeches to get other people to follow him and do what he inclines them to do.
Be prepared for people to try to overthrow you
Do you have any enemies? Fine. This means that you once stood for something in your life.
Winston Churchill
Once you realize that you are moving towards real change, critics will immediately appear who will try to denigrate you and dethrone you from your leadership position. Just take these attacks for granted. This is a sign that you are truly making a difference in this world.
Have the courage to face ingratitude
Don't expect people to thank you forever just because you did something good for them, even if it was a lot of good. People have a short memory for good deeds and prefer to focus on the negative.
After Churchill led his nation through six years of world war, the British wanted a new leader in peacetime. His friend Harold Nicholson once said: “It’s human nature. When we reach the open sea, we forget how we clung to the captain during the storm.”
But Churchill only brushed aside such thoughts of ingratitude. Yes, he regretted that his service was shorter than he would have liked, but he had already done a lot of what he was going to do, and that was enough.
Create like God: an integral part of life
To be truly happy and healthy, a person needs two or even three hobbies. And they all must be real.
Winston Churchill
The secret of Churchill's incredible productivity can be considered a paradox, since it lies in the same active and productive use of his leisure time.
Churchill discovered that this was the only way to achieve many hours of productive work per day. If he noticed that the results of his literary works were becoming confused and unsatisfactory, he simply switched to another type of activity. After some time, he could return to writing again, invigorated and ready for new literary exploits.
Churchill believed that by periodically engaging in various activities, a person trains his brain well and has a good rest.
There is no point in telling tired “mental muscles”: “I’ll give you a good rest,” “I’ll go for a walk,” or “I’ll just lie there and not think about anything.” The mind will continue to do the same thing. If he weighs and measures, the weighing and measuring continues. If he gets upset, he will continue to do it. There is no use arguing with your mind in such a situation. One American psychologist said: “When you get upset for some reason, there is a kind of spasm of emotions: the mind has caught something and is not going to let it go.” You can only cautiously try to hint at something else while the mind convulses on the subject of past thoughts. And if this something is chosen correctly, if it really belongs to another area of interest, then the mind gradually begins to relax and recover.
Choose your hobbies carefully
Despite the fact that Churchill called hobbies an integral part of a fulfilling adult life, he did not believe that you can choose them just like that:
A hobby is not something you can quickly pick up in one day. Finding interesting activities for your mind is a long process. You need to carefully choose your hobby and maintain interest in it.
Churchill believed that an interesting hobby is needed not only by those for whom work and play are incompatible things, but also by those who really love their work. The most important element in choosing a hobby, he believed, was that the activity was different from what you did during the day.
It makes no sense to ask a laborer who has been sweating and exhausting himself all week to play sports on Saturday, such as football or baseball. In the same way, you shouldn’t invite a politician or businessman who has been working and worrying about important things all week to work and worry over the weekend, but on a different task or project.
Churchill also noted that, despite the great popularity of reading as a hobby, it is too similar to the daily activity of a person who makes a living by mental work to provide him with enough contrasting impressions.
In addition, Churchill advised choosing hobbies that involve both the eyes and the hands—crafts, because they in the best possible way help restore mental balance.
Again, this is especially true for knowledge workers, as manual labor fills the gap in such occupations. In addition, there is an opportunity to create something, which is especially important for people whose work is not related to creativity.
And finally, Churchill was against the huge number of hobbies that some people take up simply to enjoy a new or unusual activity, and then abandon it. Discipline is important not only in work, but also in hobbies, since it sets the very way of life and thoughts.
Let's summarize:
Carefully consider the different activities and choose the one that suits you best.
Make sure that your hobby is radically different from your usual work activity.
Do your chosen activity long enough so that it can turn into true love your life.
Keep different interests at the ready and take a break from a boring activity without regrets
Boredom was a threat to Churchill's peace of mind. Winston saw boredom as a waste of an already short life, and when he felt boredom setting in, he made sure to take a “ruthless break” and choose a more suitable activity.
Any activity could be a cure for boredom: dictating a letter, singing Gilbert and Sullivan operas out of tune, or laying bricks in the garden on Chartwell... He always had a whole list of possible activities in stock: reading a novel, feeding a goldfish, analyzing what was written in newspapers or pathetic speeches about England's great past.
Modern adults sometimes get stuck in tedious activities, not even because they have not found an interesting hobby for themselves, but simply because they do not even suspect that they are bored.
IN modern world, where at any moment you can sit down at a computer or take a smartphone, we don’t even understand that we are actually wildly bored, and useless surfing is just a way to distract ourselves from boredom.
You are simply wasting time on useless distractions, and interesting activities there is no time left. Therefore, the ability to identify boredom, mercilessly interrupt and do something else is very important, in particular for freeing up time for worthwhile hobbies.
Delegate tasks if possible
Of course, Churchill's super productivity was not due solely to his enthusiasm and ability to concentrate. He had a whole team of assistants who solved the main problems and thereby freed up space in his schedule for more important matters. He didn't clean his house, cook food, or go shopping.
Some people think that if you delegate your affairs to someone else, in other words, dump your affairs on others, this can change your character for the worse. However, an analysis of the lives of many great people shows that for the most part they knew how to delegate their affairs and used it very often.
After all, would the English nation have benefited much if Churchill had raked leaves in the garden instead of writing speeches on Saturday mornings?
In addition, outsourcing everyday routine tasks allows you not only to devote more time to work, but also to find more time for hobbies, which, as we said above, are sometimes no less important than the work itself.
Yes, of course, most of us are not wealthy enough to pay people to do all the routine things for us. But perhaps you can find money for some of them: pay for cleaning your home and office, delegate some business to your employees and relatives.
Remember: you are freeing up your time, which can be spent much more productively than cleaning the tiles in the bathroom.
Taking a decisive break from boring adulthood
Many adults are now bored, have little rest, and feel anxious and depressed. Churchill was prone to melancholy, but he managed not to succumb to its attacks due to work that brought him satisfaction, interesting hobbies and no less interesting responsibilities.
To combat bad moods, periods of boredom and idleness, Churchill always used the method of hard breaks. The bodyguard tasked with keeping an eye on Churchill once remarked:
He can start moving at any moment, without warning. If he encounters boring people during dinner, he will be polite and tolerate them for a while, but then he will simply give up and leave. If the movie he is watching is boring, he will not force himself to watch it to the end - he will simply get up and leave, and it does not matter who he came to the screening with, even Mr. Franklin Roosevelt himself.
Sometimes the time comes for a decisive break from the flat and boring adult life. Our work, responsibilities and free time can be difficult, stressful and filled with problems, but not boring.
Someday you will die. But until you're in the grave, don't let boredom get to you.
Stories about ten classmates who were friends until their gray hairs will most likely remain only in films. At one not-so-wonderful moment, you will discover that with many of those with whom you shared your most intimate. And all your new friends are your colleagues. Because in adult life you have neither the time nor the desire to get involved in adventures, since you are generally tired of people.
2. You will have to develop a system for evaluating yourself
As a child, you get used to the fact that there is always a moderator of your behavior next to you. The teacher gives grades, parents give candy or a belt. And you learn to balance personal interests and trying to please an adult, but at the same time you see a framework within which you can return if something happens.
In adult life, there will be significantly fewer guidelines and you will have to develop them. There are some things you won't be praised or scolded for, and you have to know for yourself what is acceptable and what is not in order to continue to respect yourself.
3. Fear of doctors does not go away with age.
You used to be afraid of the doctor because he would look into your mouth and give you a painful injection. Over the years, the fear has not gone away, there are simply more reasons for panic.
4. Your body will betray your age.
From the point of view of social life, 25 is the new 18; at 30, life is just beginning, and one cannot dare to call sixty-year-olds old men and women. But your body will think differently. One day - and quite early on - you will feel that something is wrong with him. In another couple of years, you will know exactly what is wrong with him, and realize that it will only get worse. You will have a first aid kit with medicines for all occasions, and you will know exactly where your compulsory medical insurance policy is.
5. Your metabolism will change
It doesn’t matter how much you could eat and not gain weight: a handful or a bucket. As you age, you will have to eat less to maintain weight because your metabolism...
6. It's impossible to feel old enough.
The argument “when I become an adult” will never lose its relevance, it’s just that one day it will become embarrassing to say it out loud. No miracle will happen on the day you turn 18, 21, 30 years old. You just one day find yourself in a difficult situation, decide to ask adults for help and realize that the most adult here is you.
7. Even your dream job is first and foremost a job.
The things you love will sometimes annoy you, and this applies to work too. Your dream position will require a lot of work and take away huge amount time. The difference between a great job and just a job is that you will at least sometimes be thinking about what you are doing.
8. People won't interfere in your life any less.
The hope that as you get older they will finally stop lecturing you will not come true. Everyone around you will still think that they know better how to live your life. Only if earlier for approval it was enough to study well and not dye your hair green, now the list of social expectations will not fit in a notebook of 48 pages. At a minimum, people will think that for some reason you are interested in knowing their opinion.
9. You will discover gaps in technical literacy.
You can be surprised all you want that parents have never learned to write SMS, until you discover that you yourself are several steps behind teenagers. After all, why master new technology, if the old one works great?
10. You will dream of solitude
A little adulthood and a fun holiday in Ibiza will no longer be a priority in your holiday plans. Your choice is a remote village somewhere in the forests of Finland, or better yet on the Moon, and so that mobile communications there wasn't.
11. You realize that everyone is mortal.
None of your relatives bear the surname MacLeod, so you always understood that your parents would die sooner or later, and so would your life. But with age, this fact moves from the realm of knowledge into a clearly realized inevitability. You will sympathize with friends, receive messages about the death of classmates, read the news and know that any moment of your life could be your last.
12. Successful pop and football stars are younger than you
In many professions, 13 years is the age when it’s too late to start. But you continued to secretly hope that a model scout would meet you on the street and be speechless from beauty, or that your passion for street football would develop into something more. And then you suddenly discover that even the contestants on scandalous TV shows are younger than you, not to mention the real rising stars.
13. Good grades at school and university do not guarantee a successful career.
Red covers of education documents do not guarantee anything at all. Only government agencies will look at your diploma, because they have a strictly regulated hiring procedure. In commercial companies, it is more important to have an up-to-date . And it is quite likely that yesterday’s poor students will manage excellent students, and not because of connections, but because they really know better what to do.
14. You can't buy everything for yourself.
As a child, it seems that if you had your parents’ money in your pocket, you would buy yourself a stuffed puppy, a model of a tank, fashionable jeans, the latest model of a computer, and basically everything you want. But, firstly, as you get older you will realize that you simply don’t have enough for everything. Secondly, you no longer need a stuffed puppy and a tank model.
15. You can eat sweets for breakfast, lunch and dinner, but you won’t
Sweets are an inexpensive pleasure. They are more affordable than vegetables or quality meat. But you will often eat chicken with buckwheat instead of chocolate, because now you know everything about calories and...
16. You can throw away the ice cream because it doesn't taste good.
Even your favorite delicacies will be divided into tasty and tasteless for you. For complete happiness, just ice cream is no longer enough for you, you need the same thing.
17. Love doesn’t have to be one and last a lifetime.
Parting with your first love will be very difficult for you. Most likely, you will even decide that you will never experience such strong feelings again. However, you will fall in love again and feel very happy.
18. Birthday is not such a fun holiday.
Even if you do not experience any complexes about the inevitable growing up and openly state your age, there will be dozens of people around who can overshadow any holiday. They will say what it was time to do at your age, and what is now forbidden, joke about old age wrinkles and gray hair, hint at a quick walk towards the cemetery. And when you say that you will figure out for yourself whether to wear a miniskirt after 25 and whether to ride a bicycle after 40, you will be considered a boor. Therefore, the birthday will become, first of all, a holiday of unpleasant communications.
19. You can stay without a family for a long time and not suffer from it
As a child, it seems that 25 years is a very old age and by this time you need to start a family and have children. At the same time, at almost any age you can find that.
20. Parents’ bad predictions will not come true.
Your life will turn out at least normally: the apartment will not become overgrown with dirt, you will find a normal job and will be able to be responsible.
What things from adult life came as a surprise to you? Share in the comments.