Life Advice on One Page

All the advice in the world will never help you unless you help yourself – Fred Van Amburgh

I condensed the most important rules I uncovered about life into 17 short pieces of advice that I wish someone had given me when I was starting out.

For each of these pieces of advice, I provide a short summary of what it is and why it’s important, as well as additional resources where you can learn more.

You can click on any of the links to read the full post:

1. Accept the idea that reality is not an independent and objective concept. Expect every person’s sense of reality is uniquely their own.
2. Learn to think in probabilities, not absolutes, building a set of mental models to help you do so. Reality is complex and unpredictable, and this way you will be much less surprised at any particular outcome.
3. Unlike reality, think of humans as often predictable in ways that you can learn.
4. Understand how humans can be predictably wrong in many situations (including you). Make a practice of looking for new scenarios where this happens.
5. Craft your internal dialog purposely and with care. Your mind is the most important tool you have, and you are shaping it every second of every day
6. Eat well, move well and sleep well. Your body is the only place you have to live, so treat it accordingly.
7. Design your daily environment to help you, not hinder you.
8. Understand how money works. It can’t buy a successful life, but it can certainly help.
9. Be as specific as possible when defining what you want. Set goal posts for what you want to make sure you are covering all the key areas.
10. Know how much you want something (and that you can change how much with just your mind). Your actions are the true indication of how much you want something.
11. If there is a decision to be made, make it actively. No decision is still a decision.
12. Get better at learning. It’s a skill just like any other.
13. Actively create your habits to support what you want.
14. Purposefully manage your time. The rest of the world will inevitably try to take you off task. Resist it.
15. Have a plan to get what you want. A plan will make you much more prepared to deal with the inevitable changes.
16. When you want someone else to do something, start with a story. All communication is ultimately storytelling.
17. Learn all you can about persuasion and influence to make your storytelling more effective and to be aware of when your reality is being shaped by others