HOW TO HAVE IT ALL: 9 life-changing principles you can apply now.
Hi friends and welcome to another post. As I’m turning 40, I wanted to share 10 principles that took me from what I felt to what I wanted to feel, principles I wish someone shared with me a long time ago.
In my experience, the hardest part of any journey is overcoming our fears, identifying our core driving need and wrestling with the inner turmoil between what we want to experience and reality. Since an early age, I clung on to others’ approval and bent over backwards to, unknowingly, avoid abandonment. But having arrived at my feared destination multiple times, I plunged into a pit of despair, self-doubt, and hopelessness.
As I made my way out of that emotional pit, I realized the harsh truth: my actions had steered my life toward the outcomes I feared. Be it at work, in relationships, or among friends, I realized that my choices yielded predictable results. This realization fueled my quest to absorb surface-level principles and translate them into actionable strategies for specific outcomes.
As years passed, the principles learned from countless books bore fruit—I achieved professional success, launched businesses, and started a family. Yet, within a few short years, my hard-won gains slipped through my fingers like drinking water with a fork. Now homeless and isolated, darkness engulfed me, and finding a way out resembled escaping from quicksands.
Tormented by regret, guilt, and a horde of emotional demons, I drowned in despair. My physical health mirrored my emotional turmoil, manifesting in daily panic attacks and breakdowns. I reached a breaking point when, amidst an anger-fueled outburst riddled with anxiety, I considered life a pointless pursuit, signaling the need for immediate change.
Initially, I pursued various self-improvement tactics— demanding exercise routines, early morning ice baths, voracious consumption of podcasts, and experimentation with any life "hacks" I found around. But the inner struggle persisted; a proverbial crown of thorns adorned by the weight of my achievements and subsequent failures.
A revelation dawned while contemplating Marcus Aurelius' words: "The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts..." Although a very familiar phrase to me, this time, those words struck a different chord.
What if my life truly mirrored my thoughts? But how could I possibly change my perception of others' mistreatment? Resentment kept me tethered until I embraced the notion that I had nothing to lose and everything to gain by altering my mindset. It wasn't until I connected the dots between my experiences, my successes, and my failures that true transformation began.
I delved into mindset mastery, absorbing philosophies and practices to help me deal with this inner battle. With each revelation, the path ahead became clearer, and my confidence in the process grew, fueled by the way I felt and led my life.
After publishing “No Grail Without Dragons”, my personal journey of inner transformation, I pursued certifications in life coaching, mindset coaching and neurolinguistic programming, equipped to impart my knowledge to others seeking fulfillment. My life is now brimming with love, health and wealth, and could have never achieved it without changing the way I thought.
The following are 5 mental ninja moves I frequently employ to enhance my thinking, feeling, and actions, paving the way to the life of my dreams in record time.
1 - PEOPLE DON’T DO THINGS TO “YOU”, THEY JUST DO THINGS
When facing with an unpleasant situation, especially if it involves someone else's actions affecting me, I reinterpret it with a positive intent rather than assuming malice.
Attributing people’s actions to good intentions, ignorance or even stupidity can save you tons of emotional pain. This approach disrupts the pattern of feeling threatened or at risk, bypassing the fight-or-flight response and accompanying emotions.
2 - EVERYTHING HAS CYCLES
Recognizing — and accepting — that all things, people and experiences are transient.
Understanding that both will pass allowed me to extract valuable lessons and embrace the experience at hand, without suffering before its necessary.
3 - ACCEPT RESPONSIBILITY, DITCH BLAME AND GUILT
Whether I encounter a setback triggered by myself or external circumstances, I choose to take responsibility rather than assigning blame.
Only after the worst I realized that, instead of repeating my old patterns, I could change my opinions, expectations and interpretations to something that aligned with how I wanted to feel, not with what I wanted to avoid.
This created a ripple of fulfillment, eventually leading to interpret the most negative of criticism as a golden opportunity to consider, improve, or ignore. The result? Massive improvement in every are of life by contemplating others opinions, accepting what worked, and discarding the rest.
4 - BE PATIENT WITH YOURSELF
When faced with unexpected outcomes, particularly in the behavior of others, I remind myself to be patient—with myself.
Recognizing that my expectations may not (and never do) align with reality, I choose to accept change and adjust my perspective accordingly.
5 - HACK YOUR BRAIN
I acknowledge the impact of external stimuli on my thoughts, emotions and behavior, but refuse to be solely influenced by outer circumstances.
By consciously reshaping my interpretation of events, I aligned my behavior with my desired outcomes, and changed the emotional impact from negative to positive.
If we know that one thought strategy leads to pain and another one to joy, why not learn how to choose?
GOLDEN RULE = LIFE HACK
Throughout my life I have filled many roles, some in the most dangerous city of Argentina to others with high ballers in Las Vegas. Navigating this palette of life experiences taught me an important lesson: no matter your background, we all tend to avoid emotional hell and strive for mental heaven.
By fighting against what I wanted to experience, I unknowingly created more of it by feeding a vicious cycle. Not once in my life I felt whole or fulfilled from having won a fist fight, argument or debate.
On the other hand, doing things for others often gave me a sense of significance and joy, my core driving needs, freed me (and others) from expectations and disappointment. This became a practical key in understanding why the Golden Rule is a hack and not a responsibility. Giving more of what you want is the surest way to experience more of it.
6 - HEAL YOUR INNER CHILD
Later in life I realized that all my responses and self-sabotage tactics stemmed from feelings I wanted to avoid, derived from negative childhood experiences, an unconventional lifestyle and the innermost desire for significance and stability.
To reach emotional balance, I worked on healing childhood trauma, the root cause for behavior I wanted to change. By healing — finding the positive in negative memories and forgiving those who did not know any better — I snapped from the chains of resentment and regret.
This new approach led to eradicating from my life automatic responses to particular events, and with it the negative consequences of reacting before thinking.
7 - TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF FOR OTHERS
Unless you plan to be alone for the rest of your life, the body you have isn’t yours but everyone else’s. If you have children, they depend on your body functioning well to protect them and provide for them. Your partner needs your body in full operating capacity to have you for longer, and make your later years more bearable for everyone.
Your work, vocation or dreams need you straight and strong to have the edge over those who don’t understand this fundamental. It is your responsibility to not cause greater burden on those you love, and be at your optimal condition to gift yourself and others the best of you.
Accepting this perspective and responsibility led to an effortless gain in health, weight loss and achieving a level of mental, emotional and physical fitness like never before.
8 - DO THE RIGHT THING
I have to admit this concept felt cheesy and cliche the first time I contemplated it, as many thrive (although momentarily) by taking shortcuts and playing for the dark side. However, after trying every approach and resorting to this one as an inevitable option, I realized that it’s the key to true freedom.
Freedom is something we experience in our hearts, and doing the right thing will pave a regret-free road to your dream destination, and prevent a little snake from becoming a dragon. It’s simple but not easy, and you won’t know the taste of pudding until you try it.
9 - INVEST IN YOURSELF
If keeping your body in good working conditions is beneficial for the experience for yourself and those around you, working on improving the way you operate will contribute to a better life in many ways.
Just like a carpenter can’t reach mastery without using new tools, one can’t level up in life if we don’t learn to do fundamental things better. Some say “ignorance is bliss”, but anyone who’s anybody in the world will tell you that “what you don’t know is hurting you.”
Learn to express yourself better, ask harder questions, read, write, or practice the fundamental principles for an extraordinary life. Life is about our relationship with those around us, and learning to do that better is sure to catapult our journey to levels we can’t even fathom.
CONCLUSION
Life is a journey of constant evolution, filled with twists, turns, and unexpected challenges. But in obstacles hides the potential for growth, resilience, and wisdom. We have the power to shape our destinies and create the life of our dreams, a potential to be unleashed through the power of mindset mastery.
Further resources:
In my book “No Grail Without Dragons,” I've distilled years of experience and wisdom into actionable strategies that can guide you toward your own path of empowerment. By reframing adversity, embracing impermanence, taking ownership of your journey, and new mindset tools for success, you can break free from the shackles of limiting beliefs and step boldly into the life you deserve.
Thank you for reading and until the next,
Victor