10 Important Career Lessons Most People Learn Too Late In Life.

If you want to achieve success, you will have to make big sacrifices. I find that many people ardently heed this advice — and make sacrifices on a permanent basis and then learn too late that there’s more to life than just chasing after success. Yes, you must make sacrifices but it should be for the short term. You should be able to enjoy the fruits of your labor.

10 Important Career Lessons Most People Learn Too Late In Life:

1. Don’t stay in a job you hate. You spend half of your life at work. Life is too short to put up with a job you hate or a boss who treats you poorly. Many people convince themselves that they can stay in a job that makes them unhappy because they need income or because they don’t believe they can find another job. But the truth is spending too much of it in a bad situation will make you miserable and it can affect your health. If you’re in this situation, try taking small steps to where you want to be. You deserve so much better!

2. Take care of yourself – Sacrificing your health for success or wealth isn’t worth it. I had a close friend who worked non-stop. He was always “plugged in” and wouldn’t even take a vacation. He was diagnosed with cancer, took retirement and died shortly thereafter. Sadly though, he never got to enjoy any of his retirement earnings. Our bodies are not machines. You can’t keep going 24/7. The lights won’t always be green. If you don’t slow down, eventually, you will come to a red light and have to make a complete stop. Don’t take your health for granted – no amount of success or money can replace your health.

“Take care of your body. It’s the only place you have to live in.” – Jim Rohn
3) Take time to Listen. Listening is a great time and money saver. It can solve a host of problems, bring creativity, give insights and not to mention show people that you care. Listening is crucial to gaining a complete understanding of situations. Without this full understanding, one can easily waste everyone’s time by solving the wrong problem or merely addressing a symptom, not the root cause. I would like to challenge you to make a concerted effort to listen more than you speak and just see the benefits.

4. Rejection and Failure will strengthen you. Failure is not the end. Few things in life are certain but failure is. Although it leaves a sour taste, failures are the pillars for success. You gain experiences you could not get any other way. Additionally, rejection is unavoidable in a creative life. Learning how to deal with rejection early on, will keep you from plummeting into a place of immobilizing despair. Rejection hurts but doesn’t dwell on it. If you focus on positive thinking, even the harshest defeat is only a stepping-stone.

5. Don’t let money or your job title define you. Most people define success around money or fame. They get their self-worth from these things. This gives money way too much power over your life. We must realize these things could be lost in an instant. Maybe it’s time for you to re-define success. Enter the race you are designed to run. Focus on a higher purpose and you’ll bring out the best in yourself and others. Only by using your gifts and talents in the service of others can you live a life that brings lasting fulfillment.

6. Surround yourself with people who will motivate you and push you to grow. Teamwork and networking are key. Part of your success is dependent on the people you surround yourself with. Social networks matter. I am not saying you should only surround yourself with sycophants but those with positive voices who will see the greatness in you, believe with you and encourage you to take action. Many of us have stifled our dreams because of doubtful and negative colleagues and friends.

7. Spend more time away from the office and more time with your family. Work is a never-ending process and life is not only about work, office, and clients. Sometimes in our efforts to provide for our families, we miss a key point: precious time with them. The interests of a client are important but so is your family. No one wishes on their death bed they spent more time in the office or more time checking email. Disconnect regularly and experience real life with those that matter most to you.

“What consumes your mind controls your life… What’s on your mind?”
8. Worrying doesn’t solve anything. It just magnifies fear and creates anxiety. The antidote to fear is action. Don’t let fear hold you back. You won’t achieve your goals if you’re afraid to pursue an idea or are worried about what others will think of you. If you push through the worry and the fear you’ll almost always find that you were worried about nothing. Have faith. Don’t worry. Patience and Persistence will open the right doors. “I’ve had a lot of worries in my life, most of which never happened.” —Mark Twain

9. Never stop learning. Never stop growing. Personal development is continuous. Learn everything about the field you are in and also related fields. Become the expert others look to for advice. With the rate at which technologies are changing, if you decide that you are done learning, you will be left behind. By continuously learning you will be able to keep on top of things, make better decisions and remain “relevant” in this digital era. Try as well to diversify your skill-set so you can have income from more than one sources.

10. Happiness is in the present moment. Many people say. “I’ll be happy when I achieve…” Happiness seems to be somewhere in the distant future where you will find that pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. None of us knows how long we have on this earth so you can choose to be happy now. The truth is the rat race is never-ending. It sucks you in and has its grip fixed so tightly that you forget to enjoy the journey and those around you. Life is full of moving targets. The bar is constantly being set higher and higher. No matter what your situation, if you can approach it with an attitude of happiness, you are already successful.

Crossing the finish line: The finish line is just the beginning of a whole new race.
I could go on for hours as this is a subject dear to me. I’ve heard of employees passing away because of stress at work or working 100+ hours a week. Money should not be the only determinant factor when choosing a job. Work-life balance is very important. Balance means making choices and enjoying those choices. There are three aspects to our lives – Personal, Spiritual and Professional. A fine balance needs to be maintained between the three elements to lead a satisfied and contented life. Sadly, most often it is the professional that occupies the driving seat. Life is too short to live with regrets. It’s time to stop enduring life and start living it.

NEW RESEARCH SAYS INTELLIGENT PEOPLE ARE MESSY, STAY UP LATE, AND CURSE A LOT

Taboo word fluency indicates general fluency

Intuitively, whenever you hear someone use profanities, blurt out obscene phrases, mix in a lot of curse words or swear a lot in their speech, and use slang more often than the neutral or “normal” words, you would think that either they have a very limited vocabulary or just do not have the level of intelligence to carry on a proper conversation without mingling their sentences with an expletive or two.

That was what I thought although admittedly, a person’s use of slang or colloquial words should logically have no correlation with their intelligence since it is possible that people who were brought up in an environment surrounded by peers often using that kind of language could be a genius. It is just that they were exposed to language which would probably sound cooler to them as opposed to their euphemistic counterparts or “wholesome” words in general.

However, in a recent study conducted by psychologists Kristin L. Jay, an associate professor at Marist College, and Timothy B. Jay, a professor emeritus at Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts and author of the book, The Psychology of Language, they found that individuals who have a high fluency in using “taboo words” generally have a high fluency in all other categories of speech.

Their hypothesis was that it didn’t matter what kind of words one used, rather if someone is fluent in one type of speech, then that would generally translate to fluency in speech, whether it be neutral, formal, or otherwise, casual types of words. In other words, they actually do have a wide vocabulary. Furthermore, taboo expressive and general pejoratives had a higher generation rate than slurs – discriminatory and derogatory insults – which consisted of the periphery of the overall lexicon size.

As written on their paper, “A voluminous taboo lexicon may better be considered an indicator of healthy verbal abilities rather than a cover for their deficiencies.

“People who use taboo words understand their general expressive content as well as nuanced distinctions that must be drawn out to use slurs appropriately. The ability to make nuanced distinctions indicates the presence of more rather than less linguistic knowledge, as implied by the POV (Poverty of Vocabulary) view.”

In terms of personality, they found that people who have a high taboo fluency also scored high in the traits of neuroticism and openness which could potentially signify that these people are easily agitated or would constantly find themselves in a negative or anxious emotional state which might be the reason why they tend to use pejoratives as a way of releasing the tension that has built up inside them. The quality of openness would actually suggest that their minds work in unconventional ways to find innovative or creative approaches in dealing with and looking at various subject matters, problems, and issues.

Lastly, they concluded that a person’s ability to generate taboo language had no correlation or was not a sign that they had a limited or lacking vocabulary. The study merely tries to point out that these people only have a tendency to utter expletives or profanities as a more forceful way of expressing their emotions and opinions. It has no bearing on their fluency or general intelligence whatsoever.

Higher IQ children sustain nocturnal sleeping patterns in adulthood

Meanwhile, other qualities that intelligent people usually exhibit include staying up late or being a night owl. Another study suggested that nocturnal people could possibly have higher general intelligence than those who would often sleep earlier. The basis for this insight relies on ethnographic studies and research in activities done by our ancestors. Generally, our ancestors would have dinner slightly after dusk and then go to sleep. In the morning, they would wake up a little before dawn, at around 6 AM.

Other societies that participate in night activities usually only involve singing, joking and other socializing activities huddled around the fire until they drift off to sleep. There have been no other records of sustained nighttime activities in traditional societies therefore, it would be safe to assume that being more active at night would be an evolutionary trait.
In order to validate the hypothesis, a survey was conducted from a large representative sample of American teenagers and young adults. From the results, it can be inferred that children who have higher IQs tend to become more nocturnal in their adulthood than those with lower IQs. It has been observed that individuals with higher intelligence slept later on weekdays and weekends, and woke up later on weekdays.

Working in a messy setting promotes creativity and innovation

One last trait or habit that could indicate that you are a highly intelligent individual is the fact that you have a messy desk. This could suggest that you have space or room to induce out-of-the-box creative thinking and to generate spontaneous, innovative ideas.

This study from the University of Minnesota states that people who are less concerned with the organization of their things or the orderliness of their schedule have more time and space in their brains to think about more important things.

Psychological scientist Kathleen Vohs concludes: “Disorderly environments seem to inspire breaking free of tradition, which can produce fresh insights. Orderly environments, in contrast, encourage convention and playing it safe.”

Highly intelligent or not?

Now, these studies do not mean to say that people who have a wholesome speech, sleep earlier, and tidy their workstations aren’t intelligent. It only suggests that people with a high IQ tend to exhibit these behaviors perhaps as an expression of their personality.

This also doesn’t mean that if you curse more, sleep late more, or maintain a messier working environment that you would become more intelligent. It’s not a backward correlation. What matters is that you do what works for you.