Most of us have heard about a theory of Gratitude, it’s become a cliché for all life coaches, from yogis to career advisors.  Briefly, for those who aren’t familiar with the subject, the theory is about being grateful for everything you’ve got and saying thank you out loud a few times until it sinks in.  Different people present the theory in different angles, from meditating on gratefulness for the hands and feet to writing down poster notes and sticking them on a mirror.  However, to me no matter how many books I’ve read on the subject, from Buddhist literature to famous coaches such as Robin Sharma and alike, it’s always been a bit ‘cheesy’ and easier said than done.  No matter how hard I tried I could talk to my own reflection in the morning, until one day I realised that I… should be talking to othersinstead (and no I am not talking about telling others that I’m grateful to be alive and not ill with a flu).

 

The powerful idea is … and I didn’t come up with it entirely by myself, it is a result of all the literature I’ve read on how to live a life worth living, of all the sessions with psychology therapists I had due to being confused, messy and depressed, and also from observing other people I know in-person, studying their life and Instagram pages.  The idea is that if you want to be truly happy in your life no matter where you are and what you do, you should talk to others and simply project an image that you are extremely happy already.  Even if it doesn’t feel right at first, just try to fake that exaugurated happinessthat might not yet exist, but I’m sure there is something in everyone’s life that they can be proud to ‘brag’ about. You don’t have to go to such an extreme of telling everyone about how amazing your life is, although some people that I know do it all over their Instagram and subsequently their life is shaping out really well and by the law of positive attraction (we all read the book Secret, right?)is becoming even better.  I do however suggest from personal experience, that by sharing positive thoughts with people close to you does make you a lot more motivated, happy and successful than by sharing fears, negativity and failures.  And in fact this may suggest we have to lie from time to time, not necessarily making stuff up (although this works as well), but rather lying about your attitudes and mood.  For example, if you hate your job, start by saying about how much you love it and try and find little things for what you can love it for.

 

The job that I am about to get is in highly intensive and tough industry of investment management and portfolio assets, that’s what I studies for 7 years, first through Bachelors than by completing a Master from a top university, hence the name of my webpages. I loved my studying and hated every minute of it at the same time, I hated being exhausted, not having enough sleep and simply not having the energy for anything else I love doing.  Now I am about to begin an immensely competitive job in London, with unlimited hours and potentially broken weekends, with no time for hobbies, beauty or relaxation.  When you look at it this way, you get a very gloomy picture, right?

 

Now let’s flip that coin on the opposite side.  I was extremely lucky to get that job in the first place, because of not only the prestige and size of the firm, but also due to the nature of the job, which is mentally challenging, intellectually stimulating, offering extensive training opportunities, working with the brightest people on the planet, learning from the best, almost unlimited salary and career progression opportunities. Moreover, portfolio analysis was something I always dreamed to do, from being back at my home country without any opportunities to even find a company that would offer a job of that kind, let alone getting the job.  People stretch themselves to the limits to be in that industry and to be in my position, not to mention that the job gives me the opportunity to ‘try it out’ first before I can decide to do it long-term.  The office is in an amazing, high-rise glass building in Central London with beautiful work environment and I already went shopping for my FinanceBeautiful wardrobe of business clothes, which I’m certainly going to cover in the coming pages…  Different picture, yeah?  Amazingly, even by writing these words and sharing them unanimously on the web changed my whole perception on what I am about to do with my life.

 

Thinking and talkingpositively will not only get you motivated, but also will help you get excited and truly happy about anything you’ve got on your plate right now, because like Schopenhauer stated in his major philosophical thesis, energies have to balanceand negatives cancel out by positives to remain constant.  That’s the principal of life, there is good and bad in everything and it’s your choice what you want to focus on.

Many high achievers have one thing in common – they strive to achieve perfection in every little detail of a task at hand.  Sometimes they might spend hours on a task just because they cannot understand or achieve each fine aspect of it, instead of focusing on a big picture and letting time help incremental progress lead to results.

 

When we are aiming at being good at something, the important thing to remember is that it takes time and if you get hang up on everything you don’t know on your way to the stars, you’ll never achieve them, because you’ll still be stuck digging through the trees. Whereas if you learn to let thing go and let your work be imperfect, let it be rough, weak, non-robust and messy, you’ll have a higher sense of achievement and if you persevere for long enough and stick around with the task or a job or a goal, you’ll notice how improvement comes naturally, without pushing through too much over-exhausting yourself, burning out and losing the flow, not because you aren’t good at what you do but because you aim to be perfect to soon, to quick.

 

Just like an artist, whose pictures are messy, unproportional and ‘incorrect’ to begin with, but he keeps painting because he is the flow, enjoying the process and doesn’t get hang up on those details that don’t turn out the way he wants.  But if he paints for long enough, he’ll eventually become good and even brilliant.  The important thing to remember is to keep learning and investing in your knowledge, because it’s impossible unless you are naturally gifted to learn how to pain by just keep practicing the wrong techniques and reinventing the wheel, while there are so many brilliant books, courses and learning materials have been developed by the best painters and artists to help armatures learn.

 

Same with any craft, be that personal training, design or quantitative finance, there are so many learning materials available, so the hardest thing is to pick the right ones, keep improving yourself and remember not to get attached to what is going wrong, instead focus on what’s going right and aim at completing the timely as opposed to perfectly – that will not only teach you time management, but also give you a feeling that you’ve achieved a lot, and in fact be a lot more useful than getting stuck on what you don’t understand or even give up on the whole thing because it is ‘too hard’.  I believe it is good to pick up a craft, a skill or a job that is slightly above your capacities, that is difficult and uncomfortable to begin with, but not to get stuck on it but rather keep the progress according to a time schedule you’ve set out, even when every aspect is not completed to 100% understanding or perfection.  It is better to complete the whole  thing to average quality and maybe come back to it and go over it again in the future, as opposed to completing 30% and giving up.

 

These words don’t come from nowhere, they are the result of my own experiences and studying loads of literature on the subject of growth.  When I was at a top university in the UK completing my masters in finance, which was beyond challenging given my weak and poorly prepared foreign background, I came across so many stumbling blocks that I nearly gave up and even had to take a gap to re-evaluate my approach.  Once I changed the mindset of ‘perfect wannabe’ and getting stuck on everything I didn’t understand (which I had hundreds of), not only did I complete the course with the flying colours, but also I realised that most things that I hadn’t understand and parked aside, I did eventually understand without working on them specifically and concentrating on getting perfect at them, but instead simply by progressing with the course and learn to let go of perfection bias, which is an inherent trait of all (or at least most) people aiming for success.