When was the last time someone told you to mind your own business?
When was the last time you told someone to mind their own business?
It’s time everyone starts doing it, here’s why:
We’ve got a fuck-load of problems.
The Borgen Project has a list of the top problems facing humanity:
In the United States, we’ve got our hands full. Racism, policing, education, abortion, equity, human trafficing, immigration, loneliness, overdoses, politics; the list literally goes on and on.
Here’s the thing. I only have so much bandwidth and the same goes for you.
The average human makes 35,000 decisions a day. If you’re awake for 16 hours, that’s 2,187 decisions an hour, and 36 a minute.
Dunbar’s number was coined in the 1990s by British anthropologist Robert Dunbar. He figured out humans can maintain successful relationships with around 150 people.
Our brains are supercomputers which are already doing a lot. And there’s a limit. If we’re not careful, we’ll lose our minds (you probably know someone who already has).
We’re already overwhelmed. The majority of Americans have reported being burned out. I know I have.
I can’t help everyone. I can’t support every cause. And neither can you. Trying to do so is a fool’s errand and recipe for disaster.
We need to take a step back.
Stop piling on more. Take time to think. Get a clear head. Start practicing self-care.
I’m coming at this from a position of love. If you’re a kind hearted caring person, you need to be more protective of your peace.
We have to mind our own business.
Minding your own business means taking responsibility for yourself and taking care of yourself. It’s what personal responsibility is.
Here’s what I’m going to cover:
Find stillness
The war for your attention, time and money rages on. If you’re not making decisions about how you’re spending your three most important resources, someone else is. The army of marketers and algorithms that constantly follows us around is growing bigger and more sophisticated by the minute.
Social media has proven to be a destructive force in our lives. Media is doing more harm than good.
One of my favorite quotes comes from Blaise Pascal:
“All of humanity’s problems stem from (our) inability to sit quietly in a room alone.”
That statement is more relevant today than it was when he said it in the 1600s.
When was the last time you sat quietly by yourself? No phone, no screen, just you.
We’ve lost the ability to sit, think and ponder. I assert we need to get back to consistently doing this.
Get clear on what’s most important to you
Collectively, we’ve been questioning everything:
While I believe this will be a net positive in the long-run, the process has been and will continue to be messy.
I’ve spent a good amount of time thinking about my first principles. Meaning, what I believe to be fundamentally true. First principle thinking can be applied to every aspect of life, and I think if should be.
Here’s the problem; it requires thought.
And that’s a problem because we’ve broken the habit of thinking for ourselves. We’ve outsourced it to imperfect entities like CNN, Fox, Facebook and Twitter (and I’m speaking from experience).
We (you and I) need to get crystal clear on what we believe to be true and what we stand for. We need to figure out our core values. We need to figure out our goals. We need to develop a personal code that we live by.
And then we need to start living by it.
In service of that, I’ve created a Values course and a Goals course you can access at no-cost and I highly encourage you to take advantage of them.
Develop your plan
It’s not enough to know. It’s not enough to know how. You need to make the life you want real and sustainable.
One of the reasons we’re burned and stressed out is that we feel out of control. We see these giant problems around us and we can’t process them.
Once you’ve figured out the things I’ve been talking about, you can start getting organized and implementing them in your life. You can begin developing your SOP, or standard operating procedure.
“People do not decide their futures, they decide their habits and their habits decide their futures.” – FM Alexander
This is at the core of minding your own business.
You want to be healthier? Develop a plan to nurture your physical, mental and emotional health.
Want to have better relationships? Develop a plan for spending more quality time with loved ones.
Want to get better with money? Develop a plan for becoming debt-free.
When you know what you want and you’ve put a plan together for making it happen, it’s time to calendar the activities. Blocking the time will increase your likelihood of doing the things you want.
Time blocking will also help to bridge the gap between not doing them, and making them habits.
Extending your influence
Once you’ve got your house in order and you’re successfully running your own race, then it can be time to spread the good news.
We’ve been screwing the order up and it hasn’t served us. We’ve been spending too much time worrying about what everyone else is doing, instead of taking care of ourselves.
The evidence of this is clear:
We need to take care of ourselves first. Once we’ve done that, we can start helping others get on the right track.
Conclusion
The world needs you at your best. Your loved ones need you at your best. This is the whole “secure your own oxygen mask first” deal.
Doing the work of minding your own business and getting clear on what’s of greatest importance to you is some of the most important work of your lifetime.
And you’re worth the commitment of time and attention to do it.
Resources mentioned
If you’d like some support in this process, you can connect with one of our coaches for a no-cost conversation.
You can access our Get Out of Debt Course at no-cost
You can access our Goals Course at no-cost
You can access our Values Course at no-cost
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