4 Life Lessons I Would Give to My Younger Self

I’m feeling nostalgic! Sitting on an island surfing and sipping coconuts has got me thinking about my younger days and the lessons I’ve learnt. With this episode I want to inspire and help other early stage entrepreneurs – I hope it helps!

Prefer To Read? Here’s The Blog Version…

Hello my loves, Welcome  back to the Wanderlover podcast!  I am coming to you from Mentawai Islands, Indonesia. If you’ve never heard of the Mentawai Islands before, make sure to check out last week’s episode where I introduced to you this beautiful slice of heaven on earth that you can expect If you plan to travel.

Here I am feeling so introspective this week and I wanted to record an episode on Four Life Lessons I Would Give to My Younger Self. I’ve been journaling a lot, meditating. A lot of downloads have come to me, a lot of revelations on how I’ve changed in the past 10, 20, 30 years, and they’re just really cool lessons that I’ve learned that I want to share with those of you, and hopefully it will help at least a handful of you If you are in a rut or if you’re feeling a little stuck. 

1. You Are Capable Of Anything You Want

The first life lesson that I have internalized and I want you to really fully internalize is that you are truly capable of anything you set your mind to.

I have proven this to be true over and over again. You have heard the message probably over and over again like you are capable of anything you set your mind to. The amount of work and the amount of things I am able to handle in my business at this stage, while traveling full-time was probably like incomprehensible to me as a young child or as a teenager. I used to admire and look up to all of these entrepreneurs. I was a teacher assistant for entrepreneurship speaker series, and all of these entrepreneurs with their amazing businesses, I was in awe of. I was like, how do you get so much done?

But I think it’s when that seed was planted, like I think I want this for myself and I’m going to try to do it, is when the how revealed itself. You truly never know how you’re gonna get there until you commit to the what that you want. And I feel like I had to learn this the hard way because growing up in an Asian American immigrant household, I was kind of like brought up with this fear-based mindset of I am not going to be good enough if I don’t get straight A’s or something really bad’s gonna happen if I don’t excel in everything that I do. And I was motivated to succeed because of fear, and that fear really put me in a vulnerable position when I opened myself up to the world, when I started putting my face behind my brand.

So many fear-based thoughts like there is so much competition, no one’s going to follow me, no one is going to want to work with me or buy from me. so much fear. But over time, over the past few years, fully committing to entrepreneurship, fully committing to my business, and recognizing that the how reveals itself, I am truly capable of anything that I set my mind to, even if it just seemed like a pipe dream at one point in my life, even if I had no idea how it was going to work out, how I would be bringing in passive income, how I would be traveling full time, how I would be married to my best friend who also travels full time with me.

All of these things that I had set my mind to and that I had manifested in my life was because I committed to it was because I decided that that was what I am going to have. And of course, because I’ve gained the confidence in recognizing my thoughts and then also recognizing that if I just simply state it and work at it, that it will happen. Of course, even today I have so many things I want to accomplish. I’m not worried about how I’m going to get there. I know it’s going to happen. I’m not operating from that same fear anymore, and it’s just a huge, huge burden off of my back. It’s like this huge mental weight that you get to get rid of because fully knowing that you can achieve it and that it will happen, you’re able to operate from abundance, from peace, from inspiration rather than fear. You are capable of anything you set your mind to, internalize that.

2. Be Patient

The second lesson is to be patient. Patience is not my middle name. I am still working on this every day, but I am a lot more patient now than I was as a child. I think age probably has to do with it because you get the experience of what can happen when you invest not only months of your time, but years and decades of your time. You see how one seed planted will need a lot of tending to until it fully blossoms, maybe 10 years later or 20 years later.

You need to have that patience. An example of a time when I didn’t have this patience was in 2017 when I bought crypto Bitcoin was at $4,000, but because it didn’t explode as instantly As I wanted it to, two years later, I sold it for like a loss. I was like buying high and selling low. Had I known patients and what the market does and just had the experience of leaving it there, I would’ve, you know, 10 timesed my investment by now. But say, you live and you learn. 

Same thing with businesses. I’ve started multiple businesses before building a successful one, but back then it was simply because, you know, I wasn’t getting hundreds of thousands of dollars in sales and I thought it was a failure. And then I closed the business down. Had I known what it took to build a business or even like in relationships, how much time and energy and effort you need to really dedicate to relationships to make them worthwhile, it becomes so much better than you could have ever imagined. And it’s proven to be true. 

The relationships I invest in with my husband, with my business, I spend so much time, so much energy investing and helping them grow, right? It’s not just like I’m gonna put a month or a few months into this. It’s really a long, long term strategy where it’s like, how can I build something better than I could have even imagined in my lifetime?

How can it be better than what I can even comprehend? And when you start thinking about your life in terms of being patient, watching them grow and not having to speed things up, not having a timeline to anything and just fully devoting yourself to your business, to your passions, to your partner, to your friendships, it comes out to be such a beautiful outcome and in return a beautiful life. And of course, learning from my mistakes, all of my investments and my retirement accounts in the stock market, in crypto, in my high yield savings account, all of my investments, you know, I’m giving them all time to grow.

I’m not going to let my emotions dominate my decisions. I’m not going to be impatient and I’m just going to watch them grow, give them time and sell when the market is high. 

3. Enjoy The Little Moments

The next lesson that I really want to share with you is to enjoy every little moment. I feel like because I’ve operated from such an achievement based mindset for so long where I needed to be successful at something, I needed to reach milestones every month, every year. It really detracts from the present moment because you’re never stopping. You’re always focusing on the next best thing or you’re always focusing on the next thing you have to do in your business.

And the thing is, that never stops. I’ve gone through so many chapters of my life, focus on the next thing and I’m like, my life is now, right? Like all of this time that I’m spending thinking about something else is detracting from the present moment. And what I fully realize now is that money doesn’t buy you happiness, but it buys you peace of mind. It buys you the comfort in knowing that you are always going to be taken care of. I have the financial independence to know that I don’t have to hustle, I don’t have to work, and I can invest in whatever I’m passionate about. I don’t need to jump into investments quickly. I don’t need to make business decisions in a rush because I get to enjoy the moment and I get to relax.

If you are in a position. Let’s say you’re on vacation, you paid for it, you deserve it. You don’t deserve to be anxious on your vacation. I had a past client reach out to me and she was on vacation and she was so happy, but then she was like guilt tripping herself from enjoying her vacation because she felt like she had to work. So do you see how that mindset, it keeps you away from the present moment of fully enjoying it and it brings you back to that fear-based scarcity mindset, and we do not want that. Remember to enjoy every little moment. You are so worthy of it and you deserve it.

4. Change Your Mindset To Change Your Life

The last lesson, and you guys have probably heard me say this over and over and over again, and I just need to reiterate one more time. If you want to change your life, you must change your thoughts. In retrospect, thinking back to my younger days, I had so many limiting beliefs, and through entrepreneurship, through changing my thoughts to be abundant, to be inspirational, to be aspirational, to be positive, I’ve attracted so much goodness into my life. And an example of how you can do the same. Notice when your thoughts are limiting.

Notice when they are fear-based. Let’s say you have a thought like, how am I going to pay the bills? I don’t have enough money to pay the bills. I’m incapable of paying my bills, and I’m so worried if I can pay my bills this month. All of these thoughts, all of that energy is being focused negatively onto you, not being able to pay the bills. So you’re kind of like manifesting what you don’t want. I have a podcast episode called Worrying is Praying for What You Don’t Want. You are focusing all of that mental and physical energy into like, how am I going to do this? Maybe you’re shaking, maybe you’re becoming anxious, you feel powerless, you feel hopeless, and that is how you’re going to manifest that negative situation.

But let’s say money is tight. How about we change those thoughts into how can I pay the bills this month? What can I do in my business? Or what can I do in my life to make sure I have X amount in the bank? How can I get this money? What can I improve on? What can I sell? What can I learn to make it a reality?

Similarly, when I was working in finance, I was working a corporate job. I changed my thoughts from, I’m stuck in this job. There’s nothing else I can do. No one around me is entrepreneurial (if you’re looking for a free community to join, you can join The Wanderlover Facebook Community). I am just stuck in this corporate hamster wheel. There’s no way out. There’s no way I can quit. I studied finance my entire life, led me to this point, changed those thoughts from what can I learn? How can I make time to start my online businesses? Who can I learn from? Who can I set up coffee dates with? Who can I DM on Instagram? How can I start? And that’s when I started Drop Shipping Amazon, FBA. I started my Blog and I started doing all of these things outside of work on my lunch breaks, on the weekends after work, and I made it happen. But it all started from believing that I could and then taking the necessary actions. So If you want to change your life, you must change your thoughts.

Stop complaining, stop making excuses. There’s no one else that’s going to do this for you. And that’s the other thing, like if you want to complain, go ahead, but fully understand how much harm it’s bringing to you and your life. And if you can get over your own bullshit and recognize that it’s not serving you and that’s not the kind of thoughts you want, you have the power to change your thoughts, you don’t need me, or you don’t need a friend, or you don’t need your partner to tell you that you can do it yourself. You can make empowered decisions, even if it’s like off-brand for you, right? Just try it, try it once. Get rid of those thoughts, shift it into something positive, something empowering.

And this ripple effect will attract so much abundance and so much goodness into your life as well. I know it may be hard in the beginning, but with a lot of practice, it will become second nature. And I believe in you. I hope this episode was helpful, If. you really loved it. Feel free to take a screenshot and share it on your stories and tag The Wanderlover, the Wanderlover Podcast. And I will see you guys in the next episode. Have an amazing week.

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