Why didn't somebody tell me this sooner

Your challenge now is to keep up the changes you’ve made and continue to add in new ones.

What I wish somebody had told me back then is if you’re stuck in your head you’re missing your life. Your life doesn’t happen in your head, it happens in every current moment as you interact with the world and the people around you. The more you analyze, daydream, replay past interactions, anticipate what will happen in the future, and so on, the less present you are for your life. You only get one short life anyway—don’t you want to really be there to experience as much of it as you can?

No one was born knowing how to manage their finances or to fix their plumbing—they were either taught by someone who did or they hire someone who does know or they scour the internet to learn from experts. Just getting over yourself and your pride and asking for help can save you a ton of work, mistakes, headaches, and time.

you want to do your thing really well, your focus has to be on the thing you’re actually doing in the present moment.

That’s the first step in becoming great at anything—put in the (focused, giving it everything you have, work your butt off) training doing the thing, whether it be a sport, art, playing an instrument, or anything else. Most people probably know that, even if they (like me) never consider it a real possibility for themselves.

most important thing to remember is that learning requires effort—the harder you have to work while studying, the more likely it is that your brain will hold onto the information permanently, not just until the test is over. Here are some tips:

What I wish somebody had told me back then is don’t worry about good grades, worry about learning. If your goal is to learn, the good grades will probably come; but if your goal is to get good grades, you’ll never truly learn. (A disclaimer: This doesn’t mean it’s okay to get bad grades because you just refuse to study. It does mean it’s okay to get the occasional bad grade because, let’s say, you got creative when doing an assignment and it didn’t turn out as planned or your teacher didn’t appreciate your creativity but you learned some valuable lesson in the process.)

ad person in general.
So what should we learn from this? First, don’t label people. What you saw or heard that’s tempting you to label a whole group of people actually only applies to the person or people that did or said the thing, not the whole group. Second, when you’re tempted to write off something or someone as just being the exception to your belief (in other words, to let your brain take its shortcut even when there’s evidence that it’s wrong), ask yourself if your belief might need some reevaluating and potentially some adjusting—or if it’s just flat out wrong.

Just because you’re not good at something now does not mean it’s not for you. It doesn’t mean you should quit. If it’s something you want or need to be

good at, you can achieve that—but you’ll have to work really hard for it and probably for a really long time. Instead of thinking, “I’m just not good at this,”