Doodle

 

Price yourself right.
正しく自分の値段をつけよう。

 

No one gives you the right price—whether you are employed or running a business. People often underestimate you or try to devalue you.

You are the only person who can set a right price for your work, product, or service. To do so, you’ve got to know what your value is, what other people are offering and what your employer or customer desperately needs. If you miss any of them, your pricing strategy will never work.

Occasionally, people overestimate you and give you a higher price than you think you deserve. Don’t turn it down—take it and do your best work. If people satisfy with your output, you prove that your self-worth was much lower than your value. Even when your work doesn’t meet their expectation, it just means that you still have room for further improvement. Either way, you learn something valuable while getting paid.

 

 

Use the non-dominant hand.
利き手じゃない方の手を使おう。

 

When you feel uninspired, draw something with the non-dominant hand. It’s an enjoyable experience and probably the best way to draw like a child. It also stimulates your brain and is, in fact, effective for improving your brain function.

Keep doing this for a while, say 10 minutes. It can give you a source of great inspiration. At least you no longer feel mundane.

 

 

Ask thyself.
自分自身に訊こう。

 

We sometimes feel like we lose our way in life. We think we don’t know what to do. Then we start asking others for advice. And we realize that others’ advice often makes things worse.

That’s because we ask advice of the wrong person. Even if our question is right, we ask the right question to the wrong person.

When we get lost in life, the first person we have to ask is ourselves. What do I want to do now and for the rest of my life? What do I want to achieve? Who am I? Asking simple, but powerful questions to ourselves can help us get back to our way or find a new one.

If you can’t even ask such questions to yourself, probably you just try to avoid accepting the fact that you get lost. Or the fact that you don’t even know where you want to go. In fact, it’s not unusual because quite a few people live only with the beliefs that someone else implanted in their mind. Accept that you’ve been ‘brainwashed,’ then you can find a way to get out of it.

 

 

Strive relentlessly to be better.
容赦せずに、より良くなろう。

 

When it comes to self-improvement, there is no ‘good-enough.’

It’s a continuous journey for the rest of our life. There is no real goal; when we think we reach ‘the goal,’ we only come to know that we still have room for further improvements, no matter how good we are.

It’s also meaningless to compare ourselves to others because each one of us has a different set of strengths, and our ultimate goal is to create a unique set of strengths. Once you become the only one, there is no good or bad; you just have to be a better version of yourself—every single day.

 

 

Reframe your brain.
アタマを切り替えよう。

 

“Whether you think you can, or you think you can’t—you’re right.” ― Henry Ford

We are what we believe ourselves to be. Once we get trapped by negative beliefs—especially the ones coming from traumatic events—it’s not always easy to rewire our brain. That’s because our subconscious mind remembers everything we’ve experienced in our life, although our conscious mind retains only a fraction of them.

So what can we do to let go of our negative beliefs? Since our subconscious mind won’t forget anything, we have to reframe our beliefs; we need to find a way to turn our negative thoughts into something positive or neutral.

It’s not easy because almost all negative beliefs have a deep emotional connection with ourselves. If it’s too hard, having a consultation with a psychology counselor would be an option. Even if you do so, you have nothing to be ashamed of; your life is too precious to live with negative beliefs.