The Hard Conversations
Day 13 - 19 / 1000
Most people are not afraid of hard situations.
They are afraid of what needs to be said inside them.
This week, I wrote about the conversations we keep avoiding, with others and with ourselves.
Here is what has been on my mind this week:
The enemy of being respected.
How do you handle criticism?
Old standards that are no longer enough.
Boundaries.
The 5%.
If your 20s had a question.
What is the best way to apologize?
1. The enemy of being respected.
Why is being “agreeable” often the enemy of being “respected”?
You can’t be agreeable all the time. It is unrealistic to expect you to agree with everything, all the time.
You can ask yourself whether you would really be okay agreeing with everything. Probably not. And it is not going to appear only on special occasions; it is probably a daily scenario in which you don’t agree with everything that is happening around you.
Now imagine how it would feel if someone you know, let’s say a friend, agrees with everything you say.
At the beginning, it might be cool because you feel connected to this person and you understand each other very well.
But if it’s like that all the time, you are going to be losing respect for this friend or partner, because this person has no voice, no opinion, no self-worth, and no boundaries.
With that said, if you want to be respected, you need to have your own opinion, your own stand on social topics, your take on issues, your boundaries, and you need to know your own worth in this world.
If you haven’t grown up with this mindset being taught to you by your parents, as I did, you will need to find your own way to develop these skills.
It is sometimes uncomfortable and difficult, but it is necessary for building your own integrity and confidence in this world.
Remember this: you are not alone.
If you feel stuck or need help, just reach out to someone you trust. They will have your back in this.
You got this.
2. How do you handle criticism?
How do you handle criticism from someone who has never built anything themselves?
It always depends on what kind of criticism you receive. Just because someone hasn’t built anything themselves doesn’t mean that their criticism must be bad.
We can always learn from failure and bad experiences.
This person may be pointing out good areas for improvement in what we are building. It might be a matter of taste where this person has developed a particularly high-end taste, and therefore, the criticism is more like indirect advice.
But that was a good scenario.
We obviously have many people around us who don’t want any good for us. Their criticism is pure envy, hate, and insecurity about themselves.
So what do we do with this type of criticism?
We definitely do not take it personally.
Over the last couple of years, I've learned that there will always be people who dislike you, your work, or both. They are going to have lots of opinions on everything, and many of them won't always be positive.
What helped me handle this with peace of mind was shifting my mindset to see it as just their opinion.
It is just their bad day, bad mood, personal insecurity, fear, whatever. It has nothing to do with you, your work, or your worth as a human.
Ask yourself why you should even listen to this person.
What do they really know about the life vision you created for yourself? Nothing.
Don’t let strangers, colleagues, friends, or even family put you down. You know why you are doing what you are doing. Keep working towards those goals and dreams you have set for yourself.
If you feel lost, then go find your WHY first, and listen to yourself.
Don’t go and fulfill others' dreams. Spend time with your inner self to find where your next steps should lead and go after them.
No criticism should stop you from doing that, so trust the process and be better for yourself.
How do you handle criticism yourself?
3. Old standards that are no longer enough.
What is one standard you held for yourself at 21 that is no longer enough for the person you are becoming today?
Let me go first here.
One of the standards I thought would take me far was the idea that if everyone liked me, it would take me places.
It is not only not enough, but it is also an absolutely wrong standard to even have in the first place.
There is no reality in which everyone around us will like us.
Thinking this is setting yourself up against an unbeatable monster. You will never win this fight. I would recommend, based on my own experience, that it is not worth starting the fight in the first place.
Another standard I held when I was 21 was accepting drinking as part of society and culture.
I thought drinking just belongs to our culture, that it is perfectly acceptable when people drink on weekdays, on Sundays, during the day, whenever there is an opportunity.
I was working behind the bar back then.
I had access to all sorts of alcohol you can imagine, and I could try any of it. We were drinking on every shift. When I wasn't working, I would drink again because everything was more fun and less boring after a beer and a shot of bourbon.
This changed drastically over time.
I don’t judge others when they drink. You can do with your life whatever you want to do, but I decided to stop drinking completely.
It was, in fact, my first 1000-day challenge. And it is still ongoing while I write this.
Looking back on my 20s, it was one of, if not the single best decision I could have made in my life.
If I were still holding to these standards today, I probably wouldn’t be writing this now.
I hope that you were able to identify and change your old standards too, and move closer towards the life you want without the useless baggage.
I would love to hear what standards you changed in the last couple of years and how they transformed your journey.
4. Boundaries
How do you set a boundary with a person you love without closing your heart to them?
There is only one proper way to set your boundary with a person you love without closing your heart to them.
Have an open conversation about everything.
There is no indirect approach that would end up being more effective than actually speaking to this person directly and openly about everything. What is happening to you, what you feel, what behaviour of this person is crossing the line and so on.
Trying to do it without conversation is the opposite of productive.
We often think that if we keep doing this, or we keep showing that, the other person will understand it and change something on their own.
It will bring you only more frustration and stress.
It is the recipe for disaster, it’s like putting something in a pressure cooker and expecting it not to boil.
Do yourself, and the other person, a favor. Talk to each other about everything that is going on. Without expectations, just go into the conversation with a clean shield and open arms.
Remember, you are not going to fight this person, you just want to talk about what is going on inside of you. And if you meet with misunderstanding and misinterpretation from the other side, despite the fact that you did the best you could, it is not your fault.
They are just not ready for real conversations.
Did you need to set any boundaries lately with your partner? If yes, let me know how it went.
5. The 5%.
What is a current “stressor” in your life?
If you strip away everything you cannot control, what is the 5% that remains entirely in your power?
Let me be honest with you here and share part of my current story.
The current stressors in my life are mainly money and a career grey zone.
All of this is within my control. That is something that you should understand as well. If you take actual ownership of your life, the perspective changes drastically.
I can control what I do to earn more money, or what career path I go further with.
It is not about stripping away stuff, it is about deciding what to do next with each of the stressors.
I believe that we are often creating stressors in our life by ourselves.
There are plenty of things we can be stressed about in today’s world, and it takes a huge amount of energy and mindfulness to stay distanced from it.
The social pressure of achieving success was never higher than it is today. Social media is feeding us with the allure of overnight success and the idea that everyone can be successful at anything at any point.
Daily, we are hit in our feed by success stories of people from all around the world.
This startup was acquired for millions, this single entrepreneur sold his business for millions, this woman selling her online courses is making millions.
It’s millions everywhere.
When this type of content is flowing in heaps on us every day, how can we not feel behind in our 20s?
That is a question each of us should ask ourselves.
I believe that the only way to stay sane is to actively plan time without phones and social media. I feel it in myself that I need more time off screens, more time to be bored again, and to become more creative and more mindful about my life.
I believe that the 5% that remains in my power to reduce the stressors of daily life is a more simple, minimalistic, and analog style of life.
This approach is much more sustainable long-term for one’s happiness than being drawn into the world of social media and high dopamine driven short form content.
It is hard, and it is going to be only harder going forward.
I’m not against technology or innovations, they are part of our life and they will be. I believe that it is important to stay up to date with today’s AI and everything else which is appearing at the speed of light these days.
We are living in a beautiful age of endless opportunities.
There was never a better time to be alive in human history than it is now. We have advanced healthcare systems that are increasing the lifespan of people and we went from horses to autonomous electric cars in a little over 100 years.
It’s all fascinating and I’m a really big fan of progress in society on all levels, not only technological.
But at the same time we face an attention span and dopamine crisis that is sucking energy out of us daily and creating artificial stress on our bodies and brains.
I would close this by saying be more mindful of how you spend your time.
Is there any stressor in your life right now that feels out of control?
6. If your 20s had a question.
If your 20s had a question, what was it?
If I had a question in my 20s, it wouldn’t be one but two questions.
Who am I, and who do I want to become?
These two questions were fundamental for me during the past years. I have been asking them very often, through a lot of the decisions I was making. Sometimes consciously, sometimes not.
One would say that it might sound like an existential crisis. Previously, I would agree.
Today, I believe that it is not a crisis, but a conscious way to navigate life.
I used to believe many things when I was younger.
I used to believe, especially, that life is more or less linear.
You choose your school, you graduate, you find a job, you find a partner, you find a house, you start a family, maybe you travel somewhere sometimes but you don’t leave your stable place and routine.
And that’s it. You have basically completed the checklist for life.
Now, you just keep going to work, take care of your family, and wait until retirement, just to find out that the pension for which you were working your whole life sucks and is often not enough to even cover basic needs.
What do you do next?
You complain about the system, the government, you start questioning everything you did in life and end up kind of confused about what to do with the rest of your days.
This seemed to be life, the life that everyone was kind of going for.
It looks like stability, and it is a very much accepted way to live your life in society, you feel like you are part of it.
I’m not saying there is something wrong with this, if it is what you want. But I don’t believe this anymore.
I believe that I can create the life that I really want. I can build a career or business that will bring me the freedom I seek, not constraints in life. I want to live up to my highest potential.
I understand today that there is no limit in this world. We can do anything we want, with important caveats, but not everything.
Life is about the choices we make today that lead our life to better, or worse, in the future.
So if I would have a new question for the last 1000 days of my 20s, it would be: How can I stay true to myself, not burn out, and build a life that is going to last for decades and bring me everything I want?
I’m trying really hard to get out of perfectionism and not get distracted by shiny objects, because these two are my biggest enemies, causing me to get stuck on things where there is no real return on investment.
It is a process of accepting, and healthy self-development.
It is about doing more of what matters, not just more for the sake of doing more and thinking that will bring more results.
What is your question?
7. What is the best way to apologize?
What is the best way to apologize when you have actually messed up?
I think that for young people it can be hard sometimes to accept their own failure, or mistakes. It takes courage to face the fact that we have messed something up.
We tend to think that we are always doing the right things. It might even feel like that, but sometimes only to us alone.
When you have messed up, you should accept that, and you should apologize for it. It’s not a weakness, it is the opposite. It’s a sign of growing maturity in you. It is the responsibility of an adult to own our mistakes.
Is there a best way to apologize to someone?
Probably not. There are thousands of different situations and billions of different people, and each one of them can react differently to each situation. So, read the room a bit.
Your apology in the heat will not land well. Let some time pass so the other person can cool down a bit as well. Then approach it with a sincere touch. Don’t fake it, don’t try to make yourself the victim, don’t blame everything else, say the truth.
Accept your mistake first, and then apologize for it.
There is one important thing to keep in mind here. Don’t expect the other person to accept your apology straight away.
You might have hurt someone very deeply and this person might never forgive you for that. All of us are a bit different, with different values.
For some, the apology is all they want to move on and be friends with you again. For others, even revenge might not be enough to cure their bitter taste towards you.
Don’t focus on the response from the other person. Focus on your part, apologizing for your mistakes, so you can move on in your life first.
You are also not responsible for other people’s feelings. You can do your best, but the way a person is going to react and feel is out of your control.
Don’t try to force anyone into any feeling because that’s not your job to do, and frankly, it’s also not really possible.
How does it make you feel when you need to apologize to someone?
I aim to deliver the most personal stories, insights, and lessons from real-world experiences I have lived through over the past decade. As I continue building my life and trying to be a better version of myself, I am documenting this journey and the lessons from my life for people who might need to hear them.
- Lukáš