I turn 36 today! I’ve been more fit with my Fitness Tiktok and academic load in this decade than I was when I was engaged and in my twenties.

It’s not the numerical value of your age that would determine what you are meant to do in life. It’s how you make use of your time.

Here are 18 things I have learned that doubled my growth in the last 10 years that can apply not just in personal life but also in business:

  1. Never stop learning. It can be formal education or just a new online course in places like Coursera.

  2. Take good advice, even if it’s from people who don’t like you (or you dont like, or both?). The more detached you are, the more growth you get.

  3. Always express appreciation and love. You never know when it’s their (or your) last day on earth so give credit where credit is due.

  4. Shirk the monopoly of knowledge in any discourse. There’s always something to learn from another person.

  5. Document and take lots of pictures. If you get hit by a bus, be considerate to the person who will be taking over your work, the colleague who will be suddenly managing your project, or the loved ones who will be left with your memories and affairs.

  6. Introduce change GRADUALLY if possible. Nobody likes being disrupted in the comfort zone, no matter how awesome the ideas are.

  7. Practice self-care and care for the people in your team or business. Just the basics like sleeping enough and drinking enough water and walking for 10 minutes every morning can make a huge difference.

  8. Prioritize small but consistent changes over big and unsustainable ones.

  9. Always give people the benefit of the doubt. :) We are all really doing the best of what we have under the best circumstances (or at least we all believe this to be the case).

  10. Read a good book and share the joy of that knowledge. #knowledgetransfer is the best way to #master

  11. Don’t aggressively prescribe solutions if you have not even heard of the problem in its entirety. Context is everything.

  12. More does not always mean better. Determine if the extra is a value add or if it’s just additional noise that distracts you from the main goal.

  13. You can’t fake the excellence that comes out of doing what you genuinely love. (But you can still turn in a decent output even if you are not head over heels with your project.)

  14. Measure things so you can objectively manage them.

  15. You need a person on your speed dial who can give you #realtalk when you are being weird and having tunnel vision about where you are and what you can accomplish.

  16. Find a way to remind yourself that you are enough and have a happy box nearby to cheer yourself up in the hard days. There will be hard days. Don’t let a bad day make you conclude that it’s a bad project, a bad life. (I struggled with this still but I put it out there.)

  17. Don’t trade the essential for the frivolous. Don’t give away your pearls to pigs.

  18. Turn IMpossible into I’m Possible, whenever possible.

So cheers and here’s to more new chapters!!! DataMom at 36 Years Old