Listen to your feelings
The advice seems pure madness, because for success you need to be guided by logic and calculation and have a clear plan of action.
However, most famous and successful people believe: you need to learn to listen to your inner voice. Composer Alan Menken, describing the process of creating music for cartoons, said that he followed his heart and tried to listen to his feelings as much as possible. If you learn this, the ability for logical reasoning and prudence will also appear.
This tip is especially good for those days when you don't know what you want. At times like these, we tend to overcomplicate things or think too much.
The solution is simple: listen to your inner self. Follow it. Only in this way will you learn to understand what you feel, express it and use it to your advantage.
How to make life brighter: personal experience
I was twenty when, on a sunny summer day, I went out onto the balcony, looked at the piercing blue sky, breathed in the warm air and thought: I live a very boring life...
Nothing “extraordinary” is happening in my life that I can tell my grandchildren about with a cheerful wink in forty or fifty years... What interesting thing happened to me in two hot months? Apart from a few swims in the Gulf of Finland, going to a bar with friends and barbecuing at the dacha?
Nothing. But this is a precious time of my youth. Why do I sit in front of the computer in the evenings? Why don't I live to the fullest? Why to the question: “How did you spend your weekend?” I answer, as usual, nothing special...
Maybe you have had such moments too? When you wait all week for the weekend, and then don’t know what to do... When, when asked “hobbies” in some form, you write: “books, films, music”...
Where to start change? A wish list
I firmly decided to fill my life with bright events. And I started with a wish list.
At first there weren't too many points:
- "jump with a parachute",
- "spend the night in a tent in the forest"
- "walk on the rooftops"
- "to go abroad"
- "to fly on an airplane"
- "try driving a car"
- “learn to shoot”...
Everything I've never done before.
It’s one thing to write it down, and quite another to implement it.
We need money to go abroad. On a hike in the forest - company. For a walk on the roofs - at least the addresses of open roofs. And so on. However, for some reason I wasn’t worried about it at all and believed that something interesting was about to happen.
And then miracles slowly began to happen in my life. The most real ones.
Literally a week later, a new friend from university suddenly called and offered to jump with a parachute:
“We’re getting together here with a whole group of about ten people, we found a jumping instructor we know, he’s reliable and doesn’t charge a lot of money.” We will jump with a parachute on our own! Come with us!
I happily agreed, although I was terribly afraid. The jump gave me a huge dose of emotions and adrenaline. For the first time in a long time, I felt 100% alive.
Then this same friend began inviting me on small hikes: the guys took tents, went into the forest to some lake and played mafia or crocodile all night, sitting around a fire.
My wishes came true one after another: a big cheerful company, songs with a guitar, night swims, delicious porridge over a fire... Then in one virtual competition I won a list of open rooftops in St. Petersburg where you can walk and take photos.
Then my dad started teaching me how to drive my grandfather’s old car, a bright orange ’76 Troika. And at the same time - shoot in the forest with a rifle and pistol.
The more dreams come true, the more interesting life is.
Then there were paragliding flights, flying at the controls of a sports plane, diving, water skiing, acting courses, photo plein photography, walks along the most beautiful roofs of St. Petersburg and little madness.
For example, penetration to the top of one of the pylons of the Cable-stayed bridge in Obukhovo in St. Petersburg, to a height of 126 meters! Luck? Well, maybe. But I always found myself in the “right place at the right time.” It was a miracle that I was included in a small group of four people I didn’t know, who were planning a foray onto the Cable-stayed Bridge - a random acquaintance called me.
It was unforgettable! We climbed into the “insides” of the bridge at the very beginning and crawled for about forty minutes in the darkness along the internal structures, lighting the way with headlamps, accompanied by the roar of passing cars. Then we climbed the steep stairs inside the pylon for another half hour.
And we almost went blind from the bright sun when we climbed out onto the platform at the very top!
Cars rushed by below us, looking like toys from such a height. Gusts of wind raised my hair on end. Tiny boats scurried along the smooth surface of the Neva.
And a little further away the dome of St. Isaac's Cathedral sparkled in the sun...
And suddenly money was found for a trip abroad. True, thanks to my mom for this! I was still studying at the time and just starting to look for a job. Moreover, at that time I did not know how to save money and travel on my own, so I obediently took money to travel agencies.
When I finally started working, everything started spinning even faster and brighter:
- "black slopes" at ski resorts in Norway,
- mountains, sea and nightclubs of Barcelona,
- pretentious capital of France,
- crazy bike rides in Denmark,
- ancient ruins in Rome,
- nettle beer and horror museums in Prague,
- Thai boxing classes in Crete,
- life with local couchsurfers in Hungary,
- walks through the snowy taiga in Siberia,
- walks with a wind of 26 m/s in the Far North,
- and meeting seals in the wild in Kamchatka...
At home - training in Thai boxing, fencing, participation in amateur tournaments, yoga and aerial yoga classes, meditation, working on a book, cleaning up garbage on the Vuoksi islands in a competition format, military-sports team race “Race of Heroes”...
What difficulties might arise?
1. Of course, fear . At least that's how it was for me.
I'm afraid of too many things. Something that an ordinary person does calmly, without thinking. For example:
- tumble,
- drive a car in the dark,
- post your articles on the Internet,
- communicate in large companies,
- fly on airplanes (not always, although every other time),
- come alone to unfamiliar places,
- ride extreme rides...
I'm afraid of an awful lot of things, I just like this feeling - when you step over your fear. You immediately begin to be terribly proud of yourself... Until the next fear
