Do what works. It sounds like the simplest of instructions. As young adults, we may misinterpret the message. This misunderstanding is due to a lack of experience. The lack of understanding is two-fold. One is because, at this time, we have nothing to pull from the past. We then look at what worked for others and attempt to duplicate their success.
Trial and error is part of finding what works so, trying until you succeed will build a past and give you a history to pull from. Life will teach you that another person’s journey is just that, theirs. Life will show you, two people, with the same goal and completely different levels of success. This is in addition to the variable levels of talent, connections, and drive. We’ll see people that lack in all three somehow surpass others who seemingly have a golden ticket to success. How is that? Where in that scenario can we find what works? Well, the ridiculousness of the occurrence should sway you away from attempting to replicate anyone else success. Be you, but how?
As we get older, we will enjoy success. It may not be the amount we’d like, but it’s there. What did we do to succeed? Grab at whatever positives you need to grab. Graduating from high school, overcoming a loss in the family, and bouncing back financially after an unexpected loss of income or savings are some great examples of success. We will say to others, “Hey, I didn’t have a choice.” Yes, we did. We could have been still and allowed those hurdles to become walls. We didn’t. We didn’t all do the same thing, either. Yes, a large percentage of us graduated high school. We all had different experiences and roadblocks, even those of us who were at the top of our classes. We all will experience loss in our families. Most likely a grandparent but some of us lose parents, siblings, or children of our own. It all hurts and, there is no way to measure or compare the effects of a loss of those types. Still, we move forward and learn to adapt with those losses. We go on to achieve great things.
Financial bounce backs are something many of us need to do multiple times. We think we’ve learned from the past. We will get better with money, but the majority of us need to fumble the “bag” a couple of times. Loss of funds happens before we understand how to hold on to it and make it grow. There are many ways to make money and, there seems to always be one more way to lose it. Regardless of the numbers, if we learn from mistakes in our early adulthood, money tends to become more of a friendly tool.
We still get lost when attempting to overcome new issues. Why? We struggle to connect experiences if they aren’t blatantly similar. That is a skill we need to build. We need to remind ourselves of past triumphs and do what worked.
Let’s come up with a scenario and utilize all of the aforementioned success stories to overcome it. We moved to a new city to get a fresh start. We have a new job. We need to make new friends, learn about our new city, and find some type of comfort in the discomfort we are in. Yes, we know everyone will adjust differently, but what is it we have on our hands? On the surface, it looks as if we are experiencing a large undertaking we never had to deal with.
We’ll see that learning new surroundings and making new friends is similar to the first day of high school. You’ve done that. The move will cause you to lose touch with a couple of people. You’ve lost people while not moving at all in the past. You’ve got this. You have a new job with a new rent/mortgage cost to adjust to. Remember when you lost your income or savings in the past? You became a hell of a budgeter. There is no problem with rearranging funds. Do what works.
In closing, we need to remember our past success. What did we do in those times? We tend to forget a lot, focusing on resolving the issue. We should record what we do. This will give us more strength and belief in getting through a new issue. We’ll have a list of great success stories and what we did to overcome issues. That list will be our story.
We will not be attempting to replicate something someone else did. It will be doing what worked for us. The chances of success with this approach are exponentially better. Get out there and live life. Keep a record and do what works. Make this complicated world as simple as you can make it.
Food for thought. You do the dishes.
