28岁前应该尽早知道的16个道理

　　Why do people give up after just few mistakes or failures? Well, I think one big reason is because they beat themselves up way too much. But it's a kinda pointless habit. It only creates additional and unnecessary pain inside you and wastes your precious time. It's best to try to drop this habit as much as you can。

　　8. Assume rapport. 假想与别人的关系：将陌生人假想成你的朋友

　　Meeting new people is fun. But it can also induce nervousness. We all want to make a good first impression and not get stuck in an awkward conversation。

　　The best way to do this that I have found so far is to assume rapport. This means that you simply pretend that you are meeting one of your best friends. Then you start the interaction in that frame of mind instead of the nervous one. This works surprisingly well。

　　9. Use your reticular activation system to your advantage. 充分利用网状激活系统(“网状激活系统”被普遍地看作是维持“一般清醒”或“意识”状态的神经系统。人在某种程度上可以根据自己的意志控制自身的意识状态。)

　　I learned about the organs and the inner workings of the body in class but nobody told me about the reticular activation system. And that's a shame, because this is one of the most powerful things you can learn about. What this focus system, this R.A.S, in your mind does is to allow you to see in your surroundings what you focus your thoughts on. It pretty much always helps you to find what you are looking for。

　　So you really need to focus on what you want, not on what you don't want. And keep that focus steady。

　　Setting goals and reviewing them frequently is one way to keep your focus on what's important and to help you take action that will move your closer to toward where you want to go. Another way is just to use external reminders such as pieces of paper where you can, for instance, write down a few things from this post like "Give value" or "Assume rapport". And then you can put those pieces of paper on your fridge, bathroom mirror etc。

　　10. Your attitude changes your reality. 态度改变一切

　　We have all heard that you should keep a positive attitude or perhaps that "you need to change your attitude!". That is a nice piece of advice I suppose, but without any more reasons to do it is very easy to just brush such suggestions off and continue using your old attitude。

　　But the thing that I've discovered the last few years is that if you change your attitude, you actually change your reality. When you for instance use a positive attitude instead of a negative one you start to see things and viewpoints that were invisible to you before. You may think to yourself "why haven't I thought about things this way before?"。

　　When you change your attitude you change what you focus on. And all things in your world can now be seen in a different light。

　　This is of course very similar to the previous tip but I wanted to give this one some space. Because changing your attitude can create an insane change in your world. It might not look like it if you just think about it though. Pessimism might seem like realism. But that is mostly because your R.A.S is tuned into seeing all the negative things you want to see. And that makes you "right" a lot of the time. And perhaps that is what you want. On the other hand, there are more fun things than being right all the time。

　　If you try changing your attitude for real – instead of analysing such a concept in your mind – you'll be surprised。

　　11. Gratitude is a simple way to make yourself feel happy. 常怀感恩之心是拥有快乐的最简单途径

　　Sure, I was probably told that I should be grateful. Perhaps because it was the right thing to do or just something I should do. But if someone had said that feeling grateful about things for minute or two is a great way to turn a negative mood into a happy one I would probably have practised gratitude more. It is also a good tool for keeping your attitude up and focusing on the right things. And to make other people happy. Which tends to make you even happier, since emotions are contagious。

　　12. Don't compare yourself to others. 不与别人作比较

　　The ego wants to compare. It wants to find reasons for you to feel good about yourself ("I've got a new bike!"). But by doing that it also becomes very hard to not compare yourself to others who have more than you ("Oh no, Bill has bought an even nicer bike!"). And so you don't feel so good about yourself once again. If you compare yourself to others you let the world around control how you feel about yourself. It always becomes a rollercoaster of emotions。

　　A more useful way is to compare yourself to yourself. To look at how far you have come, what you have accomplished and how you have grown. It may not sound like that much fun but in the long run it brings a lot more inner stillness, personal power and positive feelings。

　　13. 80-90% of what you fear will happen never really come into reality. 你担心害怕的事情，十之八九不会成真

　　This is a big one. Most things you fear will happen never happen. They are just monsters in your own mind. And if they happen then they will most often not be as painful or bad as you expected. Worrying is most often just a waste of time。

　　This is of course easy to say. But if you remind yourself of how little of what you feared throughout your life that has actually happened you can start to release more and more of that worry from your thoughts。

　　14. Don't take things too seriously. 凡事别太较真

　　It's very easy to get wrapped up in things. But most of the things you worry about never come into reality. And what may seem like a big problem right now you may not even remember in three years。

　　Taking yourself, your thoughts and your emotions too seriously often just seems to lead to more unnecessary suffering. So relax a little more and lighten up a bit. It can do wonders for your mood and as an extension of that; your life。

　　15. Write everything down. 好记性不如烂笔头

　　If your memory is anything like mine then it's like a leaking bucket. Many of your good or great ideas may be lost forever if you don't make a habit of writing things down. This is also a good way to keep your focus on what you want。

　　16. There are opportunities in just about every experience. 机遇无处不在

　　In pretty much any experience there are always things that you can learn from it and things within the experience that can help you to grow. Negative experiences, mistakes and failure can sometimes be even better than a success because it teaches you something totally new, something that another success could never teach you。

　　Whenever you have a "negative experience" ask yourself: where is the opportunity in this? What is good about this situation? One negative experience can – with time – help you create many very positive experiences。