33 lessons from 33 years of living and learning.
Nobody likes you when you’re twenty-three. Why? Because as I sit down to write this, I’m actually surprised I didn’t write it ten years ago. I had a lot to say in my early twenties. The problem is, who wants to get life advice from a 23-year-old? Hopefully, no one.
Well, what about thirty-three? It’s a weird spot. Not old, but not exactly youthful either. I guess age is relative.
Interestingly, regardless of age, most people believe who they are right now is who they’ll be in the future. Research shows that for groups aged 18 to 68, people describe more change occurring in the past decade than they would have predicted ten years ago [1].
For example, researchers asked 33-year-olds how much they believed they would change in the next ten years and compared their responses with the changes 43-year-olds reported having made in the past ten years. Young, middle-aged, and older people believed they had changed a lot in the past but would change relatively little in the future. We don’t think our personalities, values, and choices will change much, but they often do.
And that makes sense. You shouldn’t be the same person you were ten years ago. You shouldn’t even be the same person you were one year ago. Life is about progress. It’s why every year, on my birthday, I take inventory of the previous twelve months. What have I accomplished? How much have I grown and changed? What have I learned?
I want to expand that further this year. What do I have to say after 33 years? Here are 33 lessons. Enjoy.
1: Never be satisfied with someone else’s normal.
This quote is from Dan Gable’s book A Wrestling Life. I don’t think I’ve ever related to anything more.
By definition, most people are average. There is nothing wrong with this, but if you want more, you have to be willing to be different.
Whenever you want to accomplish something, ask yourself if you are interested, committed, or obsessed. It’s okay to be interested, but don’t expect results like those of fully committed or obsessed people.
2: Don’t feel obligated to finish the book, movie, or TV show.
I struggled with this when I was younger. If I started a book, I would slog through it until I finished it. Not anymore. There are too many good things to waste time on stuff you don’t enjoy.
This goes beyond entertainment. It’s the sunk cost fallacy. It’s hard to abandon anything you have invested a lot of time or money into, but the sunk cost can’t be recovered. Often, it’s best to cut bait and move on.
3: Consistency almost always beats intensity.
I talk about consistency a lot.
Going back to the first lesson, people think being obsessed requires a monumental effort. It often doesn’t. It requires making a plan to reach your goal and then never missing.
It’s better to be consistently good than occasionally great.
Keep showing up.
4: Where you are in life is 100% due to the decisions you have made up to this point. Accept it and move forward.
When things are going well, it’s easy to take credit. Unfortunately, you have to do the same when things are not going well.
It’s a tough pill to swallow. Trust me, I’ve been there.
5: Dogs truly are a man’s best friend.
It took me thirty-one and a half years to learn this lesson.
6: Underpromise and over-deliver.
Most people have a certain level of expectation for you based on a stereotype of who they expect you to be. We all do it. Stereotypes are stereotypes for a reason. The good news is that it doesn’t take much to exceed expectations.
If you tell someone you can finish something by Friday, do it by Thursday.
7: There will never be the right time. Do it now.
I see this with fitness all of the time. People are always waiting until things slow down. Guess what? They never will. There are holidays all year. Work is busy all year. The kids have stuff going on all year.
Another way to put this is being default aggressive. I got that phrase from Jocko Willink. When deciding between two options, lean toward the one that involves immediate action. Some of my best decisions came from being proactive.
This works for simple things, too. Remember, everyone is shy. The other person is waiting for you to make the move. Make it.
8: Don’t let anyone discourage you.
Your goals should be so big, they not only scare you, but scare others as well. I’m convinced discouragement has stopped more people from trying than anything else.
Remove the phrase “be realistic” from your vocabulary. There is no such thing.
If your goals are ambitious enough, even if you miss them, they will push you farther than you would have otherwise.
9: Don’t feel embarrassed about the things that you love.
Most people are not passionate about anything. When you are super passionate about something, you come off as weird. That’s okay. The most successful people I know are weird about the things they excel at.
10: Search for moments that make you feel alive.
Competition does this for me. I love the butterflies and nervousness around competition. But I also feel alive doing anything really difficult. If you don’t know what makes you feel alive, start with something challenging. Preferably something you don’t think you can do.
11: Remember, the time will pass anyway.
Don’t worry about how long something will take. Accomplishments worth doing take time. If it were quick and easy, everyone would do it.
12: Books are still the best value purchase I know of.
For under $20, you can get decades’ worth of knowledge.
If you don’t know where to start, here are 51 books every man should read in his lifetime:
13: A lack of confidence is more of a concern than overconfidence.
There is a strong relationship between confidence and performance. We see this in sports, business, and life. With all things being equal, the more confident person often wins. However, everyone has seen an athlete or team get beat by a big underdog. Was overconfidence at play, or was there some other explanation?
In most cases, overconfidence is just a way to explain away failure after the fact. The real issue was believing you didn’t have to prepare or exert effort to get the job done. If you want to call that overconfidence, you can. I don’t. Either way, overconfidence is much less of a worry than underconfidence, and you should do everything you can to be as confident as possible.
14: No one will give you permission to work toward your goals.
Do you know what the Eisenhower Time Matrix is? It’s a way to prioritize tasks by dividing them into four categories: urgent and important, important but not urgent, urgent but not important, and neither urgent nor important.
Most people assume the urgent and important category is the one to focus on. It’s not. The important but not urgent category is. That is where you focus on your long-term goals and dreams—things like learning new skills, starting a side hustle, writing a book, or prioritizing your fitness.
Important but not urgent activities lay the foundation for the life you truly want, but they are easy to neglect because there’s no immediate pressure to act on these tasks. Unlike urgent matters, no one pushes you to prioritize them; you don’t get external reminders to work on your dreams. It’s up to you to focus on this category, even though it may feel less pressing.
Start each day with an important but not urgent task before doing anything else.
15: The heaviest weight at the gym is the front door.
Put another way, the most challenging belt to get is a white belt.
Getting started is hard. You have to be willing to try stuff and put yourself out there.
This is a lesson you can only learn by experience. Most things are more difficult in our minds than they are in practice. Once you get the ball rolling, you often find it takes much less effort to keep it going.
16: Have high expectations for yourself and no expectations for anyone else.
The only person you can control is yourself. Don’t expect other people to be anything other than who they are.
It’s common for people to have this lesson backward and judge others by their actions but themselves by their best intentions.
17: Accumulate things that can’t be taken away.
Money is great. It can make life a lot easier, but you can lose money. Better yet, you can waste money. It has a way of disappearing.
The same goes for material things. Plus, the things you own end up owning you.
Skills, on the other hand, can’t be taken away. The best investment you can make is in yourself.
18: It’s never as bad as you think it is, but it’s never as good as you think it is, either.
If it seems too good to be true, it is.
19: Only elaborate on things you know about. It’s okay to be quiet.
In our social media-infatuated society, everyone feels entitled to share their opinion. The trouble is, why should anyone care? The same goes for in-person communication.
In most social settings, I listen more than I talk.
To most people, I come off as quiet. That said, I’ve recorded 450+ podcasts, made hundreds of YouTube videos, and written hundreds of articles. I have a lot to say, but only about a few topics.
“It is better to remain silent at the risk of being thought a fool, than to talk and remove all doubt of it.” – Maurice Switzer.
20: People overestimate how much they can do in a day but underestimate how much they can do in a year.
You know, many of us try to pack way too much into a single day, and it can feel overwhelming. I’m guilty from time to time. But here’s the thing—big changes don’t happen overnight. If you stay consistent, even if it’s just small daily steps, you’ll be amazed at how much you can accomplish in a year. So, don’t stress about getting everything done today. Play the long game.
21: Competition is great. Comparison is not.
I love competition. I turn almost everything I do into some form of competition. It pushes you to be better. But comparing yourself to others? That’s a trap. If you look hard enough, you can always find someone better. Social media is terrible for this. Focus on competing with yourself and on getting better than you were yesterday. That’s where the real progress happens.
22: The best way to change your life is to change your body.
If you really want to level up in life, start by taking care of your body. When you’re strong physically, it ripples into everything else. Eat healthy, lift weights, do cardio, and get enough sleep. Do that consistently, and you will be a different person.
23: Fitness should enhance your life, not take away from it.
Fitness is supposed to make your life better, not be something that controls you. It’s about finding balance—working hard and being disciplined while still enjoying everything else. If fitness stresses you out or takes over your life, you’re doing it wrong. It should only add.
24: You are what you consume.
You may have heard you are the average of the five people you spend the most time with. Or, if you walk with the lame, you develop a limp.
Well, equally as important in today’s world is being the average of what you consume. I’m talking social media, mainly. Be mindful of what you are putting into your brain. Is it making you better or worse?
25: Beware of the Dunning Kruger Effect.
The Dunning-Kruger effect is a cognitive bias in which people with low skills or knowledge in a certain area overestimate their abilities, while more experienced people tend to underestimate themselves. It happens because beginners don’t know enough to recognize their deficiencies, while experts are more aware of what they still need to learn.
You see this a lot online. People will read a single book, blog, or social media post on a topic and think they know it inside and out, while a PhD who has been studying it for decades is less sure.
It’s okay to say I don’t know.
26: When in doubt, work harder for longer.
Success often takes more effort over a longer time than you think.
“Men give me credit for some genius. All the genius I have lies in this; when I have a subject in hand, I study it profoundly. Day and night it is before me. My mind becomes pervaded with it. Then the effort that I have made is what people are pleased to call the fruit of genius. It is the fruit of labor and thought.”
― Alexander Hamilton
27: Workout with no headphones once in a while.
We have too much input without enough introspection. Drive without listening to the radio. Walk without listening to a podcast. Take a break from input and focus 100% on what you are doing.
28: All that matters is what you do. Not what you say you are going to do, but what you actually do.
This works in the past tense, too. It’s wild how many people bench-pressed 400 pounds in high school. If you can’t show me, don’t even bother telling me about it.
Here is the thing – I don’t care what you used to be able to do or what you plan to do in the future. All that matters is what you do right now.
29: Work on deadlines. Parkinson’s Law is real.
You’ve probably noticed this—work expands to fill the time you give it. That’s Parkinson’s Law. Create urgency and watch your productivity skyrocket. You don’t need more time. You need better focus.
30: Sometimes, early success can prevent long-term success.
Early wins can make you feel like you’ve already made it, and that’s dangerous. It’s easy to get complacent, thinking you have it all figured out. You stop looking for better ways to do things. But real success takes time, consistency, and learning from setbacks. Don’t let those first little wins trick you into slowing down.
31: The only respect that matters is self-respect.
At the end of the day, it’s not about who approves of you or who’s cheering you on. It’s about you—the respect you have for yourself when no one’s watching. If you’ve got that, everything else falls into place.
32: Anticipation for an event is usually better than the event itself.
Isn’t it funny how often we build something up in our minds, only to find that the actual experience falls short? Sometimes, the excitement leading up to an event—the anticipation, the planning—is more enjoyable than the event itself. It’s a reminder to enjoy the journey, not just the destination. Also, try always to have something to look forward to.
33: “Don’t Behave as if you are destined to live forever.” -Marcus Aurelius
Life is finite. It’s a gentle reminder not to put off what really matters. Enjoy the moment, pursue your passions, and don’t wait too long to chase after what you want—time has a way of slipping away. The next ten years will be gone before you know it. How much do you think you will have changed by then?
Author: Kyle Hunt
Email: KyleHuntFitness@gmail.com
Hire Kyle as your coach: http://www.kylehuntfitness.com/services/
Reference:
1: Quoidbach, J., Gilbert, D. T., & Wilson, T. D. (2013). The End of History Illusion. Science. https://doi.org/1229294