All My Self-Improvement Articles Burn Down to Only 3 Crucial Things
Waking up early isn’t one of them
Of the 412 articles I’ve published so far, over half are on self-improvement — averaging 5 minutes each; that’s 16+ hours of content.
But even such an encyclopedic mass reduces to only a few core ideas.
It’s the dirty little secret of self-help writers—we rehash the same ideas and insights until they’re lodged deep in our readers’ skulls.
“Everything that needs to be said has already been said. But since no one was listening, everything must be said again.”
— André Gide
Creativity isn’t about unearthing new ideas — it’s about dressing existing ones in a menagerie of ways.
Allow me to compress those 16+ hours of redundancy into 4 minutes — only 3 no B.S. takeaways of practical wisdom.
Take them seriously, and your life will transform. Period.
Salad Or Fries? (Not What You Think)
$1000 today or $1500 next month? Meditation or hyper-stimulation? A passion-fuelled side hustle or drunken late-night partying?
Two brutally honest friends or a host of fake sycophants? One deep relationship or nightly hookups? Or, even worse, the choicest and most extreme of porn?
The longer you delay gratification, the sweeter the rewards.
“Hard choices, easy life. Easy choices, hard life.”
— Jerzy Gregorek
Delaying gratification goes against millennia of evolution — that has wired our brains to crave (momentary) pleasure and avoid pain.
But fighting this impulse with your willpower isn’t sustainable — wield these 3As instead:
- Awareness of your present life and how you wish it to be. Who are you? What are your beliefs and values? Why do you do what you do? Regularly meditate and introspect to find these answers.
- Accountability. You shape your life with your hands. The cavalry isn’t coming — own your f*ck-ups and let them blast your way forward to success.
- Automation. Systems, routines, and habits remove will-power and “mood” from the equation — as my friend Shivendra says, “It’s easier to go 100% than 80%”
Don’t go ascetic mode right off the bat — taper off instant gratification activities and inch towards delayed ones.
Change your life one salad at a time.
The Superior Alternative to Mindless Hustle
Hustling = Earning money = For purchasing your freedom and time. But what if there’s no time left to “buy” back?
Millions mean nothing when you’re a saggy grandpa with creaking joints and rheumatic eyes.
Slogging 9 to 5. Sloshing in alcohol 5 to 2. Scrolling through Reels 2 to 5. Repeating it all as a caffeine-powered sleep-deprived zombie. The weekends?
More sloshing. More scrolling. Throw the occasional “side hustle” in to make yourself feel better.
Life is painfully short — a mere nanosecond on the cosmic scale. Do you want to die with bitter regrets or while smiling ear-to-ear?
The answer to the latter is holistic living — relishing the present while building a comfortable future.
Sweating your stress out in the gym. Developing solo hobbies. Sleeping 8 hours every night. Reading delightful books. Dabbling with the creative arts. Bantering with your family. Nature getaways and massages.
Best of all? Studies and surveys have proven that a holistic lifestyle radically boosts your work productivity as well!
You know how you want to live — look past your ego, society’s pull, and peer pressure.
“Every man has two lives, and the second starts when he realizes he has just one”
— Confucious
Our Electronic Devices Have Enslaved Us
Be it endless Instagram feeds, ultra-vivid porn, or hyper-realistic games, your phone unlocks an entire world of dopamine
At the cost of the real one.
With 340+ beeping notifications sucking you dry of focus and drive, how are you going to achieve anything worthwhile?
Not willpower, not discipline, not bad luck. Your device usage alone is holding you back from maximizing your potential.
Let that sink in.
Snatch back the leashes of your life from your devices — so you can steer it in the direction you desire:
- Slam shut all your push notifications — and benevolently use DND. That IG story reply can wait.
- Welcome to the grey side — colors leech your dopamine. Strip them away to murder your screentime with one stab. If this sounds extreme — so are its benefits.
- Limit or quit the FOMO hellhole of social media. Been a year since I deleted my social accounts — I’ve never been happier or possessed more mental peace.
- Get rid of the news channels and apps. “News” = “Over-exaggerated negative crap to worsen global mental health.” Research has proven its negative effects.
- Real-life catch-ups > Phone calls> Texting. Video calls are the worst of the lot.
- On the commute, read or listen to podcasts instead of scrolling through your phone.
- Have a “No-Screen” time. Use the first and last 2 hours of your day for non-screen leisure — hot showers, reading light fiction, strumming the guitar, catching up with the gramps, etc.
Once you experience the surreal world of offline — you won’t trade it even for a million bucks.
Delaying gratification + Living holistically + Tapering off your devices = The holy trinity of life-altering self-improvement.
Don’t wish for massive change right away — take tiny but consistent steps in the right direction.
“Every day it gets a little easier… But you gotta do it every day — that’s the hard part. But it does get easier.”
— Jogging Baboon from BoJack Horseman
Before long, those efforts will compound into behemothic changes.
