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Be silent.
静かにしよう。

 

When your mind gets noisy—it’s often inevitable—you never get a good idea.

Each one of us needs to learn how to quiet our mind, no matter how old we are now, because it will benefit us for the rest of our lives. That will help us avoid making impulsive (and most of the time, stupid) decisions in our lives. That will helps us distinguish what we can change from what we cannot change.

Try to have a silent mind whenever possible. Don’t get upset easily—that’s a monkey in our mind.

 

 

Be what you are.
自分でいよう。

 

We are our worst critics; we tend to judge ourselves too harshly—or avoid getting a fair evaluation.

The former can lead us to killing ourselves. If you have a tendency to do this, remember that you are better than you think you are.

The latter may be a bit more problematic. People who do this live in a fantasy world, and don’t embrace what they actually are. Probably we should let them alone—until they notice that they need to live in a real world.

 

 

Make good use of your time.
時間をうまく使おう。

 

You want to focus. But people around you interrupt you all the time. What would you do?

Going to the office earlier—say, thirty minutes earlier—is one of the solutions. You can prioritize the things you need to do for the day, or actually do some of them without less interruption. That thirty minutes can be worth an hour or two in the middle of the day.

When it comes to productivity, how much you try to do doesn’t matter; quite often, how you make yourself concentrate matters.

 

 

Adopt a beginner’s mind.
初心者の気持ちでいよう。

 

When was the last time you learned something new?

When was the last time you made a mistake that only a novice does?

When was the last time someone laughed at you because you messed up something you were not good at?

We tend to hesitate to learn from scratch, especially after we get older, because we don’t want to feel embarrassed.

But when we stop learning something new, we stop growing—and our skill-set starts deteriorating. If we don’t want to see that happening, we must adopt a beginner’s mind—at least from time to time.

 

 

Celebrate your independence.
独立を祝おう。

 

How free are you?

We often get trapped. We sometimes don’t even notice that we are trapped.

By our employer. In the past. Into implanting a false belief that we are not good enough. And we give up on our dreams without recognizing that we are giving up on them. That’s mental slavery.

If you have something you really want to do in your life, you don’t want to waste your life away. Work harder and smarter, and declare your independence. If you keep working harder and smarter, someday you will be able to celebrate it.