From LifeHack May 21

1. Stop taking so much notice of how you feel. How you feel is
   how you feel. It’ll pass soon. What you’re thinking is what you’re
   thinking. It’ll go too. Tell yourself that whatever you feel, you feel;
   whatever you think, you think. Since you can’t stop yourself thinking,
   or prevent emotions from arising in your mind, it makes no sense to be
   proud or ashamed of either. You didn’t cause them. Only your actions are directly under your control. They’re the only proper cause of pleasure or shame.


2. Let go of worrying. It often makes things worse. The more you
   think about something bad, the more likely it is to happen. When you’re
   hair-trigger primed to notice the first sign of trouble, you’ll surely
   find something close enough to convince yourself it’s come.


3. Ease up on the internal life commentary. If you want to be
   happy, stop telling yourself you’re miserable. People are always
   telling themselves how they feel, what they’re thinking, what others
   feel about them, what this or that event really means. Most of it’s
   imagination. The rest is equal parts lies and misunderstandings. You
   have only the most limited understanding of what others feel about you.
   Usually they’re no better informed on the subject; and they care about
   it far less than you do. You have no way of knowing what this or that
   event really means. Whatever you tell yourself will be make-believe.


4. Take no notice of your inner critic. Judging yourself is
   pointless. Judging others is half-witted. Whatever you achieve, someone
   else will always do better. However bad you are, others are worse.
   Since you can tell neither what’s best nor what’s worst, how can you
   place yourself correctly between them? Judging others is foolish since
   you cannot know all the facts, cannot create a reliable or objective
   scale, have no means of knowing whether your criteria match anyone
   else’s, and cannot have more than a limited and extremely partial view
   of the other person. Who cares about your opinion anyway?


5. Give up on feeling guilty. Guilt changes nothing. It may
   make you feel you’re accepting responsibility, but it can’t produce
   anything new in your life. If you feel guilty about something you’ve
   done, either do something to put it right or accept you screwed up and
   try not to do so again. Then let it go. If you’re feeling guilty about
   what someone else did, see a psychiatrist. That’s insane.


6. Stop being concerned what the rest of the world says about you.
   Nasty people can’t make you mad. Nice people can’t make you happy.
   Events or people are simply events or people. They can’t make you
   anything. You have to do that for yourself. Whatever emotions arise in
   you as a result of external events, they’re powerless until you pick
   them up and decide to act on them. Besides, most people are far too busy
   thinking about themselves (and worry what you are are thinking and
   saying about them) to be concerned about you.


7. Stop keeping score. Numbers are just numbers. They don’t have
   mystical powers. Because something is expressed as a number, a ratio
   or any other numerical pattern doesn’t mean it’s true. Plenty of
   lovingly calculated business indicators are irrelevant, gibberish,
   nonsensical, or just plain wrong. If you don’t understand it, or it’s
   telling you something bizarre, ignore it. There’s nothing scientific
   about relying on false data. Nor anything useful about charting your
   life by numbers that were silly in the first place.


8. Don’t be concerned that your life and career aren’t working out the way you planned.
   The closer you stick to any plan, the quicker you’ll go wrong. The
   world changes constantly. However carefully you analyzed the situation
   when you made the plan, if it’s more than a few days old, things will
   already be different. After a month, they’ll be very different. After a
   year, virtually nothing will be the same as it was when you started.
   Planning is only useful as a discipline to force people to think
   carefully about what they know and what they don’t. Once you start,
   throw the plan away and keep your eyes on reality.


9. Don’t let others use you to avoid being responsible for their own decisions.
   To hold yourself responsible for someone else’s success and happiness
   demeans them and proves you’ve lost the plot. It’s their life. They
   have to live it. You can’t do it for them; nor can you stop them from
   messing it up if they’re determined to do so. The job of a supervisor is
   to help and supervise. Only control-freaks and some others with a less
   serious mental disability fail to understand this.


10. Don’t worry about about your personality. You don’t really have one.
    Personality, like ego, is a concept invented by your mind. It doesn’t
    exist in the real world. Personality is a word for the general
    impression that you give through your words and actions. If your
    personality isn’t likeable today, don’t worry. You can always change it,
    so long as you allow yourself to do so. What fixes someone’s
    personality in one place is a determined effort on their part—usually
    through continually telling themselves they’re this or that kind of
    person and acting on what they say. If you don’t like the way you are,
    make yourself different. You’re the only person who’s standing in your
    way.