Life Engineering đ§: Recent Episodes
Leo Eckl
I hear people complaining all the time. Whether itâs about their job, their health, their friends or politics.They are even frustrated about the cold temperature in the winter until the summer arrives so that they can then sigh because of the hot weather. Ridiculous from this perspective, right?
The bad news is: Complaining doesnât get you anywhere. The good news is: Almost everything can be changed.
This doesnât mean everything is perfect or otherwise solved within a second. We all start somewhere and this is something we definitely have no control over. This might be unfair, however, itâs way better to play with the hand you were dealt, than to cry over not having a better one.
Once we accepted this fact, we free ourselves up for change. This is no too easy and whatâs coming afterward wonât be easier. Change is the one thing our body is wired to avoid since it holds potential danger. We all know that we wonât die from starting to the gym, but how can our out-dated brain know that.
So what is required to turn things around? To me, it comes down to three things.
First of all, we need belief. Belief, that the reward is worth the effort and belief, that we can make it. If we lack one of these two beliefs we wonât even start. Therefore, itâs extremely important to constantly fuel this belief, especially if we are shooting for the stars.
Secondly, effort is required. Anything worthwhile having, doing or being has its price. There is a reason why not everyone is a millionaire, a professional athlete, enlightened or perfectly engaged in his relationships. Itâs a physical law, that in order to move something, you need to put energy into it. Without working on something, it will simply stay the same. The greater the aspired change, the greater the necessary amount of effort.
And lastly, the one thing to put in all this effort: will. We need to be willing enough to pay the price, to push past our thresholds, to do more than what others might do. The more we want it, the more likely we are to achieve our goal. This is the reason why our âWhyâ, our reason for doing certain things, is getting stressed so much, lately.
Do you pass this first test for your ambitions? Great! Because the wonderful thing is, if you constantly work on it, it has to change. There is no way out. Or did you ever hear from someone who went to the gym five times a week for three years and couldnât notice any changes? Letâs get into some examples where you might unconsciously be in the role of the victim instead of taking on responsibility for your own life and start taking action.
First things first, your money. Okay, just kidding, there are more important things than that, but money is just the perfect example here. Itâs socially accepted to just work oneâs nine to five, groaning about the long working hours and blaming the boss for oneâs poor financial situation because he doesnât consider a raise to be a fair thing. What we might forget is that we have the main control over our income. In fact, what we get is what we give. How much money we make is in direct correlation to how much value we bring. This can differ a bit, but over the long term, this is the case. And we all can deliver more, if we believe we can and are willing enough to put in the effort into working more, working more efficient or attend seminars etc. The same goes for relationships. Although relationships are often viewed as to be how they are, either a good one or a bad one, at least 50% of the influence towards the relationship is ours. If we donât take them for granted and if we see that we can improve them and then actually do it through more or better quality time, deeper and more honest conversations, or whatever suits best for the specific type of other person and your connection with him or her, we will see drastic improvements.
You can see that this applies to basically every area of life and therefore leaves us with the great opportunity to probably change anything. It wonât be always easy, but it is possible. Just this realization, that we are fully in charge of our lives should be enough inspiration to start making sustainable changes today.
Did you like cleaning up your room in your childhood? Me either. And if you did, congratulations! You might have a decent edge over normally more chaotic people like me when it comes to efficency. Especially for the last two years, my focus was heavily on how can I become more productive? How can I accomplish more in less time? And how can I be more effective?
In the end it all comes down to how efficient you are. Although we can improve our discipline and work thresholds over time, at each specific day we have limitations. Therefore, we need do find a way how we can get as much output as possible, while having a minimal input.
In the end it all comes down to how efficient you are. Although we can improve our discipline and work thresholds over time, at each specific day we have limitations. Therefore, we need do find a way how we can get as much output as possible, while having a minimal input.
The one thing that costs us the most energy, time and money are distractions. Anything we do that is not helping us the best way possible to reach our visions is wasted time (enjoying the moment can be a vision, too). Thus, I found it to be the most important thing to clean everything up in order to stay efficient.
This does not end with your room, although this is a good starting point. If your workspace isnât cleaned up your make it so much harder for yourself to stay concentrated. This is an obvious one, letâs look for some examples you might not yet think of. How about your finances? Are there clear, automated payments? Do you have a weekly, monthly habit to go over your incomes and expenses? Can you see how much energy and money this can save you?
Do you plan your days clearly, so that you know exactly what you want to do at any time? Do you have clear goals, which you broke down into smaller stepping stones to allow you the fastest way towards reaching them?
And now a quite unusual one: Your relationships. Of course, itâs up to you how you handle them, but I see many, especially young people texting all day long. They might consider themselves to be quite social, but in most cases the conversations are quite hallow and meaningless. Given the fact, that you only have a finite amount of time in a week, it might be a good idea to rethink where to pay attention. How about figuring out the people that really mean something to you, meet with each of them once a week for a clear two hours, have deep conversations and eventually a way more profound connection than anyone else who texts thousands of messages to acquaintances?
From this point of view, itâs obvious how much easier our lives become, if we start to clean them up in of their parts. This is the one way I consider to be the most impactful way to always stay efficient.
âEudamonia-the highest goal over which no other can be thought.â -Aristoteles
For Aristoteles, this highest goal is bliss and to achieve it, you need to take action and realize your opportunities. Therefore, there are actions which contribute more to your happy life than others.
As this estate of life should also be your ultimate goal, you need to start thinking about what you are doing and why. Be clear about your goals that will help you feeling felicity. When overthinking your daily situation, always ask yourself where this particular action is leading you up to and whether it helps you becoming a better person and improving your life.
If you come to the conclusion that one action is no good for you, you have the power to quit doing it. But if you decide to continue doing a certain thing, it is exactly what you want to do and because you think that it will enrichen your life. Even if you have to take a detour and some things might not bring you joy, always keep in mind why you are doing this and to what it will lead you. This change of your mind-set will help you enjoying the journey to whatever you want most in life.
You are the only one to have the power over your life and to decide whether the things you are doing are useful for achieving your life goal or whether they are not. Stop blaming other people or difficult circumstances for your own missile position but instead start taking action and change the things!
âI have never understood why some people are lucky enough to be born with the chance that I had â with this path in life. And why across the world, thereâs a woman just like me with the same abilities and the same desires, the same work ethic and love for her family who would most likely make better films and better speeches. Only she sits in a refugee camp, and she has no voice. She worries about what her children will eat, how to keep them safe, and if theyâll ever return home. I donât know why this is my life and thatâs hersâŚBut I will do as my mother asked, and I will do the best I can with this life to be of use. â - Angelina Jolie
As Angelina Jolie has correctly realized in her 2013 Governors Awardsâspeech, there are people in this world with greater opportunities than others have. Because we (probably) only have that one life, we should try to make the best out of our situations, no matter where in society we stand and what our circumstances are.
Everything you think, do and feel is based your culture, family, friends and environment as your surrounding has a huge influence on your behaviour and perception. So, depending on your environment, people will support you or drag you down what will also lift you up or tear you down. Thatâs why you would want to surround yourself with supportive and understanding people instead of people who are biased and judgemental as it will help to with your personal growth and your best life possible.
When realizing that you peer group is rather judgemental in place of understanding as they react negatively to something new or âunusualâ you want to try out, go and find people who have similar interests and expectations of life, even though that might not be as easy. But nowadays, there are so many great opportunities to connect with people who have the same mind-set as you, for example over social media. The better developed your groups is, the better it is for yourself as they will pull you up to their standards and therefore improve your life.
As Aristoteles explained, the human being is a âzoon politiconâ what basically means that your surrounding has a great impact on you and that you cannot be happy without a working society. But as times have changed, is society still as important for oneâs well-being? Actually, it is a huge problem that people are being influenced by their surrounding as it often keeps them away from doing something amazing in which they truly believe.
First of all, you need to realize that criticism is a good way for self-growth and âimprovement as long as it is constructive. The people you want to distance yourself from are the ones who blame you without any obvious reason for doing unusual and/or extraordinary things.
One simple way for stop caring about what people think of your actions is realizing that any person who takes the time to blame and judge you, instead of improving their own life, is below your personal development. That doesnât mean that they are bad people or generally worse than you are but they are just not as developed when it comes to social skills. Because of that fact you should stop taking âadviceâ from those people as it is irrational. But instead, you should start taking advice from people who are further developed and who have more social skills. Those are the people to lift you up, to help you becoming a better person and the ones you want to surround yourself with.
Of course, it is not that easy to stop caring about peopleâs opinions and it takes a lot of time and practice, but once you have internalized this way of thinking, it will become less difficult.
Why you need to be your own coach:
It is usually a coachâs mission to help their clients to achieve greater clarity about their current life and to accompany them in formulating and realizing their goals - potentials and resources are identified and activated, obstacles are fixed and circumscribed, strategies and methods continuously adapted to the needs and developments of the client.
But the problem with that is that a coach doesnât know your thoughts, emotions or inner motivation but can only guess about them. Also, very often people donât want a coach to know about their true life situation because they feel embarrassed.
You are the only person to know about those thoughts and emotions. So why not taking advantage of that fact? Being your own coach may be hard in many situations: you need to be a 100% honest to yourself and also be very strict which might not be easy, especially in regard to difficult phases of life. Whereas it is easier for an external coach because they have a more objective view on your life.
In order to achieve this more objective view on your life and being able to see your lack in performance, it is important for you to also take an external perspective, a kind of birds-eye view. In your daily life you need to start questioning your thoughts and actions without feeling attacked by the outcome to get a better sense of feeling for your body and mind. But please do not forget to make reasonable decisions and always listen to the signs your body is giving you.
Nobody said that it will be easy to discover the unpleasant truth within yourself. Truth is, that it mentally will be quite hard. But if you manage to pull from these opposites, you have such a great power to move yourself forward in life.
Life Engineering is the 100% commitment to live the best life possible. It's not only about improving your life a little bit, but more about constantly rethinking your current path, always seeking for better methods and to actively manage your time here on earth.
This is a huge decision and although it's actually obvious to go for it, it might be too big. It's so abstract and unclear, that we might tend to ignore it, to distract ourselves with other "urgent" things. But even if we decided to live life to the fullest: How do we start? Where do I begin? What is the best thing I could do in my life?
Of course, there is no absolute truth. Nevertheless, there are some first steps that sound quite compelling to me. So here are my recommendations! First of all, we need the commitment. If you don't desperately want it, you won't last long on this path. It's uncommon and your friends, family or beliefs will pull you back soon into the "normal" way of living. So you really want to be sure about this path. You need full conviction. It also doesn't matter who you are, what your past was and were you live. Surely, there are more and less privileged people and I have full empathy for those who can barely make their money. But there is absolutely no contradiction. Even if you almost starve, it doesn't take any penny away from you to decide that you are going to make this life the best one you can possibly do. It's just about not complaining and taking on the full responsibility regardless of were the universe let you start your journey. The only thing that will definitely keep you were you are is the belief that it can't get better.
We want to create this large vision for ourselves. Something so big that we can't imagine something greater. It must really be the highest form of life we can pursue. Anything else is illogical (it should still be possible, but what is not possible, if we put in all we have. side note: the highest form of living is probably mostly done within yourself, so totally for free and always available). The big danger here is that we might fall into the trap of believing that there what envision is our idea. We are deeply influenced by our surroundings, like friends, school, family, etc. and simply society's ideals in general. Thus, it's really hard to get through to our roots and to truly understand what it is that we should achieve. But exactly this process is part of Life Engineering. This is the reason why I came up with this term and started to adjust everything I do to find out and pursue the most important thing. It's quite helpful to write your ideas down. Just thinking about it is a good start, but won't really keep you accountable to your ambition.
If it's possible for your kind of mission, make a concrete plan. Try to anticipate how it might become reality. Maybe, the way is quite clear, so it can be really simple to make this plan. But don't take it for being dispensable. You also want to have something, that allows you to manage your time and energy. Something that let's you look at your life objectively, so that you can act more as an observer and navigator. This will help you to make better choices and give you an overview of what your life currently proportionally consists.
After that, make it a habit to constantly check yourself. Where can I further improve? What should I read next? Who might help me to take the next step? Is something missleading me completely? Is this plan practical?
But we don't want to stop living. This would miss the goal completely. Live your life as you always did, just know where you want to go, be aware of how you act and if that is aligned with what you wrote down.
Finally, after you gained traction, NEVER STOP IMPROVING. Research more, try it everything that makes sense to you and see how it works out.