Here are 5 interesting ideas that could change the trajectory of your life…

1 – You are the parent of your future self. Start looking after them like they’re your child.

It’s easy to forget sometimes that your future self is a real person with real human feelings. Since you can’t imagine what their life will be like, it’s easy to sabotage it now by putting off important work and indulging in destructive habits.

Of course though, you’ll have to live their life eventually, and you don’t want to suffer when that time comes.

Realise that your future self will inherit the life you create for them with your choices. If you make the wrong choices now, their life will be hard. If you make the right choices, their life will be easy.

Start thinking of your future self as your child who you’re responsible for looking after. They will either flourish or suffer in their life based on what you do for them now.

The psychologist Jordan B. Peterson wrote in his book 12 Rules for Life to treat yourself like someone you are responsible for helping.

Start treating your future self like you would treat anyone else, with respect. They’ve done nothing wrong, so make hard choices now to guarantee them an easier future.

2 – You don’t need the people around you to leave behind their comfortable lifestyle for you to do the same.

One of the worst mistakes you can make is improving your life at the same pace as everyone else and waiting for them to change first.

Most people are waiting for someone else to take the first step towards a better life. Most people will be waiting forever then and you don’t want to join them, or else you’ll never live up to your potential. Why wait for other people to finally realise how they’ve been wasting their life with their actions? Why wait for them to leave behind the addictive social media foods, video games and junk food poisoning their minds and bodies for you to do the same?

Why not just move forward yourself, even if it means you’re moving alone?

If you’re serious about your growth, there are two options you should choose. Either take responsibility for your own life and start making positive changes when others won’t, or leave behind the people you surround yourself with and join ambitious, high agency people who don’t need anyone else to determine how fast they move. (and still take responsibility for your life).

3 – The greatest acts of rebellion in the 21st century are saying No and sitting alone with your thoughts.

The modern world is designed to distract you.

It’s hard to focus or to stay sane at all when things like push notifications and social media feeds easily suck us in when we feel a twinge of boredom. These distractions are fighting a war against our attention. One we’re letting them win too easily.

The greatest act of rebellion in the modern world is to resist these distractions, to focus on what you’re doing, to sit alone with your thoughts and to not constantly reach for your phone.

The ability to do nothing in the modern world has somehow become a superpower. It’s one we can all cultivate for ourselves.

Start trying to notice when distractions are pulling you away from what matters, whether that’s work or time with family. Remember that those distractions are leading you into a trap. Resist them, or even better, eliminate them from your life so they can’t touch you at all.

This will allow your mind to breathe. This will give your mind permission to think for once.

4 – It doesn’t matter how much you love your work. If you never allow yourself to rest, you’ll start to hate it.

Some people out there love their work. It feels like play to them. Taking a break from it would be torture to them.

If you’re one of those people, that’s great. But you still need to take breaks.

Your life can’t just be about work, or else, are you really living? You weren’t put onto the world to be a non-stop working machine. The point of your life isn’t to do as much work as possible. You have to learn to rest, or you’ll burn out and won’t be able to do the work you want to do.

There’s the toxic idea of rest being a sign of weakness, which a lot of people have bought into. In reality, the opposite is the truth. Rest is a sign of strength, especially when your work is really enjoyable. Deciding to stop working so you can recharge is hard. That isn’t weakness.

Working all day is the real sign of weakness.

It shows you can’t make the hard decision to rest even though it would be better for you. It shows that there might be problems in your life you don’t want to confront like your poor health and poor relationships. You might be using endless work as a way to drown out all thoughts about them, so you don’t have to finally confront and fix them. Over time, those unfixed issues will only get worse.

Take a break. It’s a good chance to rest your mind and body. And an even better chance to take a good look at the state of your life.

5 – Trying so hard to be someone else is the easiest way to waste your life.

Wanting to change your life for the better is good. That shouldn’t mean changing who you are completely. You should aim to become a better version of yourself, not the best version of someone else.

You’ll always be you. You can never physically become someone else, so why bother? You can’t steal their genes, their experiences and their thoughts. Even then, if you could, you’d just produce an ugly copy of them.

Get comfortable with the fact that you can only be you. You can always become a better version of yourself and that’s good enough.

Think about this: if you spend your whole life trying to become someone else, can you even call that your life?

What to do now

If you liked one of these ideas, how will you apply it? How will you use it now to change the trajectory of your life?