My wife often ask me a question – “Why do I always have to finish every project and challenge that I choose to start or engage in, and then working super hard each day even when I should take it easy and just relax?” And you know what, my answer is always the same – “I don’t know. I just can’t do it any other way.” If I signed up for something, whether it is a personal or professional challenge, I must not only finish it within set deadlines, but I also have to do the best job I can, no matter what.

Here is one example for you. Twelve weeks ago, I chose to do a 12-week fitness challenge program, where I was expected to exercise five days per week for twelve weeks straight. Each day would consist of a quick warm up, followed by 25-30 minutes of intense physical (with weights) or cardio workout, and finish with 8-10 minutes of stretching or yoga. When I stared the program, I didn’t really knew what I was signing up for, because, I would not know which exercises from the following fitness plan categories: Tabata, Plyometrics, Cardio-Strength Intervals, Interval Training, or HIIT, I would be expected to do until the day of the actual workout, so every day was a surprise. On top of highly physically-demanding exercises that I had to do each day, I also had to get in the habit of waking up every day at 6am to complete each workout, before it was time to take a shower and take kids to school. Setting different hard exercises aside, waking up early each i to perform intense physical workout was probably the most difficult part of the entire challenge. Now, with all this in mind, I was determined to stick to the program for 12 weeks, exercising 5 days each week, no matter how tired I was or how unwilling to do any physical activity I was on any given day. It was extremely difficult. Some days I would wake up at the sound of my alarm and just lay there staring in the darkness of the bedroom in a comfortable bed, contemplating if I should just take one day and skip. However, as tempting as it was to skip one day, my persistence and determination to complete the program uninterrupted kept me going. I am pleased to say that I have successfully completed 12-week fitness challenge program, completing a total of 180 workouts, over 23K calories burned, and spending over 1.9K minutes training in total. Once again, I had proven to myself that determination, persistence, and never-give-up attitude does pay off.

Now, you would think that I would take a break from fitness challenges and workouts, and just relax for few days? But no, I immediately enrolled into yet another 12-week fitness program without even giving it a second thought. Sure, I know that this would be more difficult and more physically demanding then the previous 12-week program. I also know that I would have to continue to wake up five days per week at 6am to workout, no matter how hard it gets, and being tempted to quit and take it easy every day. However, no matter how hard it gets, I know that I can do it, I can and will win no matter what.
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I am sharing this story just to show you that everyone is capable of setting a goal and then work hard with extreme determination and persistence to accomplish a set goal. All we would need to remember is that it will be difficult at times, that we will be tempted by outside factors all around us, in our daily lives, to stop and quit. But, as long as we do not let those outside factors and our own mind convince us that we are uncapable of completing that what we’ve started, then we will accomplish whatever  we’ve set out to do, and once again prove to ourselves that we can. Believe in yourself, and keep on going, keep on trying, no matter how hard it gets every day.

Whether someone receives a degree from college or university after graduating from High School or not, self-education is what enables us to use the knowledge and skills acquired for many years to come. Sure, having educational base is important, and I am not necessarily referring to college degree. Base knowledge could be acquired K-12. However, if one is choosing to go beyond High School to further formal education and study a particular major, than that’s great. There could never be enough knowledge. That is why I believe that everyone should invest time and energy into personal development, self-education, and continuous learning indefinitely.

Often, our best teacher could be failure that we’ve experienced at any given point in our life. It may not seem or feel that way at a time, but if we looks back at that experience, I am sure we can find one or more things that we can improve on so that we don’t make same mistake again. Right? I know I have certainly learned and continue to learn from the mistakes that I make, then improve the process, and try again until I am satisfied with the result. The main goal is not to repeat the same mistake twice. We all make mistakes throughout our life, and making mistakes is ok, as long as we can learn something new from each experience and have something to take away which could help us in the future.

Self-education is not all about making mistakes and learning from our failures. Self-education is finding something that we can do to learn more every day and to expand our knowledge base. This could be an activity such as reading a book, even if it is few pages each day. So, what I am saying is that one doesn’t have to pick up a book and read it non-stop, unless you are so inclined, but, perhaps, read it over a period of time – few days, weeks, or even months, depending on the size and complexity of the book. Reading is supposed to be interesting and something that brings you enjoyment, not something that you do because someone expects it from you. Now, this is different from reading and studying educational material in textbooks, or other educational materials such as lecture notes, study guides, etc., while attending grade school and/or college. You must read textbook to learn the information you would need for a class, test, and to build informational base in our brain that could be tapped into sometime in the future.

Self-education and reading as part of self-education is something that you do on your own accord anytime you have free time after school or work. The whole concept of self-education and personal development is centered around us seeking and creating opportunities to learn something new or something that we are interested in learning more about each day, on top of the base knowledge received through formal education.

Some additional ideas for self-education and personal development could be – listening to audio books, reading business and world news, attending digital online training courses on LinkedIn Learning, etc. What’s important here is not which self-learning activity one selects, or the number of different learning activities one completes, but doing something each day to grow and expand our knowledge, and do so every day, not just some days.  Personal development and self-education is something that’s ongoing and never-ending, and it’s very important to learn about things that we are interested in and actually enjoy learning something new daily vs. feeling like we must do something just to be able to say that we did it. This type of learning will not be enjoyable, will quickly be forgotten, and placed in the “I’ll get to it tomorrow or later” folder of our daily lives. Make learning fun, enjoyable, and create opportunities to learn something new each day.

For many years I’ve been trying to figure out and understand why is it so difficult for some of us to be genuine in our conversations, in business and personal relationships, and just daily interactions with others, whether it is our colleagues at work or people that we meet for the very first time? Why we try to create this imaginary person whom we are not vs. just being who we are and being open and honest with others? To this day I am struggling to figure this out. I know that one of the possible reasons may be our inner desire to be liked. Another possible reason is our desire to be accepted, to be a part of a “group.” I guess that’s why people create stories and personas that are far from reality, but sound and look good to other people. However, if this is the case, then sooner or later our real persona, our true character and personality, our genuine and real thoughts and opinions would make their way to the surface of our daily lives, and everyone would be able to see everything that we’ve been hiding deep inside of us for so long, and see us for who we truly are. Why go through such difficulties? Why make our own life and lives of others more complicated and confusing, when everything can be so simple and genuine if we just be ourselves, be honest with others, and say what we think, not what we think other people would respond more favorable to?

Sure, those who are genuine and honest, those who say what they think and what’s on their mind, while remaining professional, and without worrying of what other people may think or say about them, or disapprove their point of view or perspective, may not be popular or liked by those who are accustomed to act solely in the interest and options of others, but does it matter? I personally believe that it doesn’t, not for me at least. What I do believe is it is important to be honest with yourself and others, be genuine in our conversations and intentions, be real and transparent in everything that we say and/or do. I can always tell when someone says what they think that I want to hear. When someone is dishonest and ingenuine in their words and intentions, there simply cannot be any trust established between individuals or groups, which typically leads to an ineffective personal and professional relationships.
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So, how can one be genuine and honest with others without having to constantly thinking about new stories to tell that never happened? In my opinion, it is quite simple, as there is no magical approach or method here. All one should do is just be himself or herself, be and present themselves to others as who they are, genuine, transparent in their intentions and words, and honest. Tell your story, good and bad, and not the story that you have never experienced in your own life. Those who dislike you for speaking your mind and speaking the truth, would continue to dislike you even if they make it look like you are the member of their ‘fan club.’ However, they will secretly respect you for building a reputation of someone who speaks the truth and not afraid to disagree, and share personal point of view, even if it goes against a popular point of view. Why would they respect you for that you may ask? Because very few are capable of doing so – being genuine and honest every day and in everything they do, not just some days.

World around us is such a beautiful and often almost magical reality in which we all live in. It may certainly be difficult to see and experience all this beauty when we are unable to or unwilling to explore world outside of our own backyard. However, even when we are unable to travel around the world for one reason or another, at a minimum, what we should be able to do is to spend time outdoors as much as we can, and go see natural beauty around us within reasonable travel distance that we are able to and willing to travel at any given time.
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This is especially nice to get out when weather is beautiful outside. My most favorite time to explore outdoors and get one on one with nature is during early fall, when trees begin changing their leaf colors, temperature outside drops and stays nice and cool, when light rain sprinkles roads and everything around with freshness and light breeze. What could be a better time than this to get out and explore the beautiful nature around us?

If you are able to travel internationally and explore not only  cities, villages, nature parks, trails, lakes, and forests in your own country, but also visiting other countries around the world, and their own unique and beautiful natural wonders, then why not to do so. I believe that the more we are able to see and learn from around the world around us, exploring it whenever we have an opportunity to do so, the more we begin to respect and appreciate everything that we have. Travel is also a great opportunity to learn about other places, states, countries, their history, and people. So, get out as often as you can and explore.

We must remember that there is a beautiful world outside of our homes, offices, and desks. Sure, we must work hard every day to provide for us and our loved ones, and creating a feature that we want to have one day, but we must not forget to reward ourselves and recharge our internal batteries, and relax while enjoying beautiful nature which surrounds us everywhere we go, we just need to stop and look around to see it.