21 Things I Wish They Had

Taught Me in School
By Henrik Edberg | The Positivity Blog

I’m 37 now. I don’t think about the past or regret things much these
days.

But sometimes I wish that I had known some of the things I’ve
learned over the last decade a bit earlier.

That perhaps there had been a self-improvement class in school. And

in some ways there probably was.

Because a teacher most likely talked about a few of these 21 things in

class. But I forgot about them or didn’t pay attention.

Some of it would probably not have stuck in my mind anyway. Or just

been too far outside my reality at the time for me to accept and use.

But I still think that taking a few hours from all those German
language classes and using them for some personal development
classes would have been a good idea.

Perhaps for just an hour a week in high school. It would probably be

useful for many students and on a larger scale quite helpful for
society in general.

So here are 21 things I wish they had taught me in school (or I just
would like to have known about earlier).

1. The 80/20 rule.

This is one of the best ways to make better use of your time. The
80/20 rule – also known as The Pareto Principle – basically says that

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80 percent of the value (happiness, money, progress with your work
and so on) you will receive will come from 20 percent of your
activities.

So a lot of what you do is probably not as useful or even necessary to

do as you may think.

You can just drop – or vastly decrease the time you spend on – a
whole bunch of things.

And if you do that you will have more time and energy to spend on
those things that really bring you value, happiness, fulfillment and so
on.

2. Parkinson’s Law.

You can do things quicker than you think.

This law says that a task will expand in time and seeming complexity
depending on the time you set aside for it.

For instance, if you say to yourself that you’ll come up with a solution
within a week then the problem will seem to grow more difficult and
you’ll spend more and more time trying to come up with a solution.

So focus your time on finding solutions. Then just give yourself an

hour (instead of the whole day) or the day (instead of the whole
week) to solve the problem. This will force your mind to focus on
solutions and action.

The result may not be exactly as perfect as if you had spent a week
on the task, but as mentioned in the previous point, 80 percent of the
value will come from 20 percent of the activities anyway.

Or you may wind up with a better result because you haven’t

overcomplicated or overpolished things.

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This will help you to get things done faster, to improve your ability to
focus and give you more free time where you can fully focus on
what’s in front of you instead of having some looming task creating
stress at the back of your mind.

3. Batching.

Boring or routine tasks can create a lot of procrastination and low-

level anxiety.

One good way to get these things done quickly is to batch them. This
means that you do them all in row.

You will be able to do them quicker that way because there’s less
start-up time compared to if you spread them out. And when you’re
batching you become more focused and fully engaged in the tasks.

A batch of things to do during an hour today may look like this: Clean
your desk / answer today’s emails / check your social media accounts
/ make three calls / write a grocery shopping list for this evening.

4. First, give value. Then, get value. Not the other way around.

This is a bit of a counter-intuitive thing.

There’s often an idea that someone should give us something or do

something for us before we give back. The problem is just that a lot
of people think that way. And so far less than possible is given either
way.

If you want to increase the value you receive (money, love, kindness,
opportunities etc.) you have to increase the value you give.

Because over time you pretty much get what you give.

It would perhaps be nice to get something for nothing. But that

seldom happens.

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5. Be proactive. Not reactive.

This one ties into the last point. If everyone is reactive then very little
will get done.

You could sit and wait and hope for someone else to do something.
And that happens pretty often, but it can take a lot of time before it
happens.

A more useful and beneficial way is to be proactive, to simply be the

one to take the first practical action and get the ball rolling.

This not only saves you a lot of waiting, but is also more pleasurable
since you feel like you have more power over your life. Instead of
feeling like you are run by a bunch of random outside forces.

6. Mistakes and failures are good.

When you are young you just try things and fail until you learn. As
you grow a bit older, you learn from, for example, school to not make
mistakes. And you try less and less things.

This may cause you to stop being proactive and to fall into a habit of
being reactive, of waiting for someone else to do something. I mean,
what if you actually tried something and failed? Perhaps people
would laugh at you?

Perhaps they would. But when you experience that you soon realize
that it is seldom the end of the world.

And a lot of the time people don’t care that much. They have their
own challenges and lives to worry about.

Success in life often comes from not giving up despite mistakes and
failure. It comes from being persistent.

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When you first learn to ride your bike you may fall over and over.
Bruise a knee and cry a bit. But you get up, brush yourself off and get
on the saddle again. And eventually you learn how to ride a bike.

If you can just reconnect to your 5-year old self and do things that
way – instead of giving up after one or two tries/failures as grown-
ups often do – you would probably experience a lot more interesting
things, learn valuable lessons and have quite a bit more success.

7. Beating yourself won’t help.

Why do people give up after just few mistakes or failures? Well, I

think one big reason is because they beat themselves up way too
much.

This is, in my experience, a habit that most often makes things worse.
It only creates additional and unnecessary pain inside you and wastes
your precious time. It’s best to try to drop this habit as much as you
can.

A good replacement for it is to ask yourself this when you have a

setback:

How would my best friend or parent support me and help me in this

situation?

Then do things and talk to yourself like he or she would.

8. Assume rapport.

Meeting new people is fun. But it can also induce nervousness. We all
want to make a good first impression and not get stuck in an
awkward conversation.

The best way to handle this (that I have found so far) is to assume
rapport.

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This means that just before you met someone you pretend and think
to yourself that you are meeting one of your best friends.

Then you’ll naturally slip into a much more relaxed, comfortable,

confident and enjoyable emotional state and frame of mind. In this
state of mind the conversation tends to flow more naturally too,
without much thinking.

Just like with your friends.

It might sound a bit odd. But it works surprisingly well.

9. Use your reticular activating system to your advantage.

I learned about the organs and the inner workings of the body in
class but nobody told me about the reticular activating system.

And that’s a shame, because this is one of the most powerful things
you can learn about. What this focus system in your mind does is to
allow you to see in your surroundings what you focus your thoughts
on.

It pretty much always helps you to find what you are looking for.

So you really need to focus on what you want, not on what you don’t
want. And keep that focus steady.

You can do that by for instance:

 Setting a goal and reviewing it frequently. This is one way to

keep your focus on what’s important and it’ll help you to take
action that will move you closer towards where you want to go.
 Use a reminder. Like a piece of paper that you put where you
cannot avoid seeing it every day. This could be on your
bedroom table or in your work space. On it you can write

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 something like “Assume Rapport” or “Focus on the most
important 20% of activities”.

10. Your attitude changes your reality.

We have all heard that you should keep a positive attitude or perhaps
that “you need to change your attitude!”.

That is a nice piece of advice I suppose, but without any more

reasons to do it’s very easy to just brush such suggestions off and
continue using your old attitude.

But the thing that I’ve discovered the past decade is that if you
change your attitude then you actually change your reality. When
you for instance use a positive attitude instead of a negative one you
start to see things and viewpoints that were invisible to you.

You may think to yourself: why haven’t I thought about things this
way before?

When you change your attitude you change what you focus on. And
all things in your world can now be seen in a different light.

This is of course very similar to the previous tip but I wanted to give
this one some space. Because changing your attitude can create a
huge change in your world.

It might not look like it if you just think about it though. Pessimism
might seem like realism.

But that’s mostly because your reticular activating system is tuned

into seeing all the negative things you want to see and reasons for
why something won’t work.

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And that makes you feel like you’re right a lot of the time. And
perhaps that is what you want. It’s at least what I wanted for a long
time.

But I finally discovered that there are more fun things than being
right all the time.

If you actually try changing your attitude for real for a week or 30
days – instead of analyzing such a concept in your mind – you’ll be
surprised.

11. Gratitude will help you in several ways.

Sure, I was probably told that I should be grateful.

Perhaps because it was the right thing to do or just something I

should do.

But if someone had said that feeling grateful about things for minute
or two is a great way to turn a negative mood into a happy one I
would probably have practiced gratitude more.

It’s also a good tool for keeping your attitude up and focusing on the
right things. And to make other people happy.

Something that tends to make you even happier, since emotions are
contagious.

Two simple questions to help you get started with practicing

gratitude are these:

 What are 3 things I can be thankful for in my life today?

 Who are 3 people I can be thankful to have in my life and why?

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12. Don’t compare yourself to others.

The ego wants to compare.

It wants to find reasons for you to feel good about yourself (I’ve got a
new bike!).

But by doing that it also becomes very hard to not compare yourself
to others who have more than you (Oh no, Bill has bought an even
nicer bike!).

And so you don’t feel so good about yourself once again.

If you compare yourself to others you let the world around control
how you feel about yourself. It always becomes a rollercoaster of
emotions.

If you want to compare then a more helpful way to do that is to

compare yourself to yourself.

To look at how far you have come, what you have accomplished and
how you have grown.

It may not sound like that much fun but in the long run it brings a lot
more inner stillness, personal power and positive feelings.

13. 80-90% of what you fear or worry about will happen never
really come into reality.

This is a big one.

Most things you fear will happen never happen. They are just
monsters in your own mind.

And if they happen then they will most often not be as painful or bad
as you expected. Worrying is most often just a waste of time.

This is of course easy to say.

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But if you remind yourself of how little of what you feared
throughout your life that has actually happened you can start to
release more and more of that worry from your thoughts.

14. Don’t take things too seriously.

It’s very easy to get wrapped up in things. But most of the things you
worry about never come into reality. And what may seem like a big
problem right now you may not even remember in three years.

Taking yourself, your thoughts and your emotions too seriously often
just seems to lead to more unnecessary suffering.

So relax a little more and lighten up a bit. It can do wonders for your
mood and as an extension of that: your life.

15. It’s OK to be imperfect (and to not do things perfectly).

Trying to be perfect is setting the bar too high. It will be impossible to

reach. And so you’ll lower your self-esteem. You may not feel very
happy about how things are going in your life. Even though they
might be going very well indeed.

Perfectionism is mindset that eats at you and your happiness. Saying

yes to being imperfect can turn that around.

Here’s two ways to do that:

 Realize the costs of buying into myths of perfection. By

watching too many movies, listening to too many songs and just
taking in what the world is telling you it is very easy to be lulled
into dreams of perfection. It sounds so good and wonderful and
you want it.
But in real life it clashes with reality and it can harm or possibly
lead you to end relationships, jobs, projects etc. just because
your expectations are out of this world.

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  Go for good enough. Aiming for perfection usually winds up in a
project or something else very slowly or never being finished.
So go for good enough instead. Don’t use it as an excuse to
slack off. But simply realize that there is something called good
enough and when you are there then you are finished with
whatever you are doing.

16. Write everything down.

If your memory is anything like mine then it’s like a leaking bucket.
Many of your good or great ideas may be lost forever if you don’t
make a habit of writing things down.

Getting it out on paper or a screen is also a good way to keep your

focus on what you want and to get an overview so you can think
things through more easily.

17. Mindfulness can help you a lot.

When I was in my early twenties then mindfulness was something

pointless that I associated with some kind of “woo, woo” meditation
movement.

I was totally wrong about that one.

Mindfulness – meaning that you are fully focused on this very

moment right now – is one of the most powerful things I’ve learned
about in the past decade.

Because there’s only one time and place where you can be and have
any control over.

The present moment.

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But most of us still spend a lot of our regular days lost in memories,
reliving a sunny vacation or maybe more commonly repeating an old
conflict or negative situation over and over in our thoughts.

Or we get lost in scenarios about what could happen in the future.

Maybe through wishful daydreams. Or maybe by building monsters in
our minds as thoughts go round and round and create scary and
dangerous mountains out of molehills or just air.

Or your thoughts may become split and unfocused between several

different things and tasks.

Mindfulness counteracts that. And you don’t have to get into a lotus-
position for 30 minutes to reap the benefits.

Instead, do this:

 When you catch yourself going somewhere else in the past or

future with your thoughts then – in your mind – shout: STOP!
Or: No, no, no, we are not going down that road again!
 Then, right away after you have disrupted those thoughts find
your way back to the present moment by either focusing only
on what is going on around you right now with all your senses –
the sights, the sounds, the smells and so on – or by focusing
100% on your breaths going in and out of your body. Do either
of those things for just 1-2 minutes.

18. There are opportunities in just about every experience.

In pretty much any experience there are always things that you can
learn from it and things within the experience that can help you to
grow.

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Negative experiences, mistakes and failure can sometimes be even
better than a success because it teaches you something totally new,
something that another success could never teach you.

Whenever you have a negative experience ask yourself:

 What’s one thing I can learn from this?

 How can I adjust my course to avoid this trap/making the same
mistake and likely do better next time?

One negative experience can – with time – help you create many very
positive experiences.

19. Go slow to go fast.

I have found that when I go too fast, when I try to think, talk, eat and
move around in my world really quickly then things don’t go too well.

Stress builds up. I start making mistakes and underperform. Negative

thoughts about just about anything start to well up and I feel like my
own personal power decreases.

But if I slow down just for a few minutes – even if I have to force it by
walking, talking, breathing and eating slower – then my mind and
body calms down too.

It becomes easier to think things through, to do things right and well

the first time and to find the optimistic and constructive perspective
again.

20. You don’t have to wait until you feel motivated or inspired.

Don’t fall for the old myth that you have to get a big flash of
inspiration or rush of motivation to get up and get going.

I’ve found it to be better to just do it and start working instead of

trying to motivate myself to get going.

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At first what you do may suck quite a bit and it’s hard going.

But after a while inspiration and motivation seems to catch up with

you. Things start to flow easier and your work is of a higher quality.

21. Taking a small or tiny step forward is one of the most powerful
things you can do.

When I was younger I thought that only taking a small step forward
was a sign of weakness. So I didn’t even try or bother and stayed still
instead.

Now I know that just taking a small or even a tiny step forward is one
of the most powerful things a person can do.

Because it gets you into motion. And just getting started with taking
action – no matter if it’s to improve your health, dating life or income
– is usually the hardest part.

Think about one thing you want in your life. Then ask yourself:

What is one small or tiny step I can take today to get the ball rolling
with that?

Find a small 5-10 minute step you can take. Or if that lands you in
inaction or procrastination then find just a tiny 1-2 minute step
forward.

Focus only on that step forward and take action on it. When you’re
done with it take another small or tiny step later on today or
tomorrow.

Before you know it those steps will add up. And what started with
just a small step will have become a big and life-changing journey.

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