Appreciate who you have become.

I was going to title this chapter “appreciate what you have.” As trite, and cliché as that saying may be, it's cliché because it's also true. You should appreciate what you have, whether those are your possessions, the people who love you, or even appreciating the night sky or a sunny day. But ultimately, those things, especially your material possessions, are accessories. They are nice to have, they brighten your day, but, in the end, they can be taken away from you. What can't be taken away from you, is you. 

Which brings me to the more important point: You have struggled every day to become the person you are today. That awkward, uncoordinated, clueless person in school, well that's not you anymore, and you don't owe him anything. The person you answer to you is not “past you” it's “present you.” You should appreciate the person you are, the person you've become, and you only need to hang on to the person you once were as much as you need to remember directions to a place you've already been to. Every part of your past that you hold on to, holds you back.

Every failure is also a learning opportunity. Every failure made you better, and every success proved that you did the work necessary to achieve that success. The one thing that no one can take from you is what you give yourself. That is you. You. Call it a soul, call it a conscious, call it the sum of neurons in your brain remembering past experiences and having the ability to predict future events based on present information. But whatever you call it, it is that voice in your head that knows better than the other voices in your head. It's that angel on your one shoulder. It's your best self. So ask yourself, will I be making my best self proud? Even when things don't go your way, ask yourself, what can you do to become better for it? Don't worry about blame, there's plenty of it to go around. Focus on yourself. And, take note of how your failures now are better than the failures in the past.

The fact is, there will always be problems, and you will always get used to whatever level of success you have, be it financial, personal, or even how fit or famous you are. Appreciate what you have been through. Appreciate the struggles, the failures, the pain, the gain, the rush of success. That has made you who you are. Don't define yourself by who you once were, and while goals are good, don't define yourself as the person you wish you were either. You are somewhere in between, and there's nothing wrong with that.