52 Ways to Make 2018 Truly Awesome!

We all need inspiration to live a successful life.

A life, where all aspects converge into a sense of fulfillment and flow. As an inspiration for you, I have selected one quote for each of the 52 weeks of 2018.

Please pick your favorite quotes among the 52 listed below. My ambition is that you identify 2-3 useful rules of engagement and focus on these in 2018. And then, go on to live an epic life!

All quotes are taken directly from my book The Personal Business Plan – A Blueprint for Running Your Life (Wiley 2013):

1. Life has taught me that you need an overarching life ambition to succeed. You need to remain learning agile to be able to reinvent yourself. And you need to have the courage to commit yourself to be happy.
2. Throughout your life, you have constructed a truth about who you are; this truth limits you in the exploration and utilization of new experiences that could disrupt this idea. In turn, this self-imposed limitation means that you stop learning.
3. Self-awareness and experience build resilience.
4. The difficulty is making the decision. Once you have made it, execution often comes easy.
5. The success of an intervention depends on the interior condition of the intervener. The quality and character of this interior condition is at the heart of success.
6. Disregard some of the advice given to you earlier on in your life and career – you have probably already evolved so significantly and improved so much that the advice is no longer relevant.
7. I can promise you two things: If you approach your career as professionally as you approach your tasks then you will be successful. And if you approach your life as professionally then you will become happy.
8. Success is the sum of your choices.
9. Reduce the friction between the interests of you, the group, the organization, society and the world – then you will have created a perpetual motion machine.
10. At work, tasks are surrounded by feelings. At home, feelings are surrounded by tasks.
11. Most of us tend to procrastinate. In fact, if it were not for the last minute, nothing would be done. But how we use our time – or how we waste it – is always a matter of personal choice.
12. Excellent ideas should be lighthouses that clearly indicate the direction to be taken. As a human being you must trust your intuition as this is the sum of your experience.
13. Face your personal crises – it’s called living.
14. Play the main part in the history of your life and be the storyteller.
15. Accept that you are judged on what you do and how you behave, not on your intentions. It’s not what you know; it’s what you do!
16. Connect who you were with who you are now with the one you are to become.
17. When you are burying yourself in activity, rule number one is: Stop digging!
18. Be explicit about your limits – keep your promises towards yourself.
19. Eliminate wishful thinking – make a reality check.
20. Document your dreams in writing – and they will materialize.
21. Believe in what you’re doing – or start doing something else.
22. Celebrate your victories – you have more glorious moments than you think.
23. Be honest towards yourself – explicitly state your deep-down motivation.
24. Define what is important in your life – and do your utmost to preserve it.
25. If you are entering the valley of despair, don’t set up camp!
26. Life is not a rehearsal!
27. Your mind is like a parachute, it only works when it is open.
28. Define the competencies that differentiate you from the crowd.
29. Learn what to do when you don’t know what to do.
30. Exercise dealing with volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity.
31. Trust yourself, trust others and trust your future.
32. Just pretend to be human – paint a realistic picture that looks like you.
33. Immerse yourself in the moment.
34. Be brave – people more often regret what they didn’t do than what they did.
35. Make a successful plan: Write it down, tell others about it and act upon it.
36. Build trust at home and at work.
37. Let go of the need to control – loosen the grip on your ego.
38. Aim at learning more the next 20 years than you have learned the last 20 years.
39. Remain learning agile – seek new experiences.
40. Think of your actions as using opportunities rather than making sacrifices – you’re not a victim.
41. Build up the necessary courage to fully committing yourself.
42. Navigate your networks – make full use of alliances.
43. Regarding your career, you’re on your own – people are dictated by self-interest.
44. Focus on development, not only operations – that will get you promoted.
45. Find value in what you do, and identify your specific and unique contribution.
46. The meaning of life is to find a goal that you are willing to die for.
47. Be sure to convince yourself before convincing others.
48. Your biological success criterion is to live so long as possible – so take care.
49. Clean out your mental attic.
50. Concentrate on your main value proposition and simplify radically.
51. What creates a happy life, is relationships, relationships, relationships.
52. It takes a very long time to finish something, you are not working on.

Thanks for reading!

By Stephen Bruyant-Langer