I have gone through a hell of a journey. Well, I am sure everyone has their own story, and I always find it interesting to hear what people have been through and analyse how it has made them the person they are today. I do notice that most successful people are:

• Driven
• Organised
  • Time Management
• Disciplined
• Self-Confident
• Resourceful
• Ability to say No
• Resilient

Driven

I always struggled to understand how to encapsulate all of these aspects. Being driven comes from finding what you are passionate about, but that passion has to come from within. For example, when I was at university, I was passionate once about getting into DJing, but this was just because everyone was doing it at the time, and if there was absolutely no one on this planet, I do not think I would have really cared then. I eventually took the hobby up, because I just loved D & B and Hard Techno Music (dopamine drops are the one). Anyways, the main point is that you cannot seek your passions out for external validation, which is what I think a lot of people fall into the trap of doing when they are younger, myself included. Passions also change over time, and certain events can cause you to lose interest in hobbies, or your priorities shift.

Being organised is up there, but a lot of people do not know how to be organised, or they do not seek ways of improving their organisation skills. We live in a digital technology age, where entrepreneurs are constantly looking for new ways to make life easier and find nuances in everyday life that they can exploit and these can lead to new ideas and businesses. Notion is an example of a website that has evolved from google calendar, allowing you to prioritise your tasks and organise your life, which I would heavily recommend – AI Project and Task Management | Plan Your Work Automatically (Try for Free). Ways of being organised include:

• Having a routine
• Creating a to-do list
• Getting through the to-do list in a timely manner to ensure all tasks are complete
• Plan ahead for big events

This seems so mundane to me, and I always think new additions can be added:

• To-do list additions:
  • Time-taken for each item
  • Colour-code (Traffic Light System) – In terms of priority
• Having a routine – timely manner (ensures all tasks are complete):
  • Google Calendar is good/ Motion is better
  • Colour-Prioritise Tasks in Motion
• Plan ahead for big events
  • Motion
  • Yearly Calendar

So in summary, what you need is:

• Motion
• Yearly Calendar
• To-Do List (A5)
• Coloured Pen (for prioritisation)
• Journal (A5)

I normally add in the journal, because I think that it helps with when something comes into your mind, to write it down. I think having too many tools makes things to complicated, and it ruins productivity and can overwhelm you. There are so many resources out there, but for me, whenever I work at my desk, I normally end up having these things. Then you have to practice using these things and build a system that works for you, then stick with it.

It is ironic how when we actually explore these a little further, we can see that Motion actually incorporates most of these:

• Motion has:
  • To-Do List Feature
  • An Agenda
  • Calendar
  • My Tasks
  • All Tasks
  • All Projects

You can pretty much organise your entire life using this, and this will eliminate the need to even have to-do lists.

Important of Organisation

I remember in my first role, I was this super passionate maximising energetic kid who would jump on things quickly, a bit like a really smart dog. I just needed some training 😉 (mentoring) but I remember that when I was leaving the role when my contract ended, I asked one of the seniors who I spoke with a bit if he had any advice. I remember him saying: “Sometimes less is better.” I thought he would say, you are so disorganised and a mess, I do not even know why we hired you in the first place, but I think even though I struggled coming into the role, I came out of it and had grown so much. I knew what I needed to work on, and towards the end I did really well. I took this quote on, and realised that I needed to apply this to my entire life pretty much. I wanted to have so many different talents, so many hobbies, be good at so many things, meet so many people, but I struggled enormously to organise myself, which ended up with me peaking late, and reaching my potential later than I could have.

Being organised will cause you not to fall off, feel overwhelmed and it is key to your happiness in the long run. I realised this after falling off three times:

• Dropping out of my degree in Actuarial Science MSc at Southampton University in 2021
• Failing my thesis in 2023 and having to redo it
• Losing my first job after doing my thesis and my friends masters in 2024

I remember the first one, was due to the fact I signed up to be Actuarial Society Vice President, Southampton University Boxing Captain and Tennis Performance Captain as well as doing a masters. This was literally impossible, and even if it was possible, I would have had to be really good at actuarial science, and then make sure that most of my timetable and routine was planned in advance. Nights out would have been kept to once if that, at a minimum a week, not everyday, and honestly I would have probably had to know a lot of the actuarial science modules already in order to get decent grades. I dropped out of the masters, but because I did not like the course, and I wanted to focus on my extra-curricular at the time, besides, I had already had an undergraduate degree. I think everything I saw, I just wanted to go for, I wanted new experiences.

The second one, was due to me leaving things late. I had signed up to so many edtech platforms, that I was dying at this point to get things done, and I also was on an internship. Normally most people just focus on an internship, and then a dissertation on top of the internship, and that is it. I focused on doing a thesis outside the internship, on top of also doing 3 edtech internships at the same time. I got half of all of this done, and completed the internship, but me failing the diss because I did not even have a plan tore me apart tbh, I gained so much weight, sprained my knee on a skiing trip and became depressed.

The third one, was not as bad. I had finished my thesis, learnt a lot from the somewhat mentoring I got from my job, and I came out of it happy. I did not mind losing my job, at that point I had just graduated, so for me it was just work experience, and in my opinion, I was getting underpaid for how much work I was doing. I know for a fact, that I made a difference to that company, and especially within that project, my name would be etched in as one of the main drivers, for how much I brought it forward. I just did not want to deal with other peoples crap at this time, so I decided that the best thing to do was isolate, and only stay around people who were supportive, not people who gave me a hard time, I just would ghost them and focus on myself, I couldn’t really be asked to deal with this energy. I knew my mistakes, and I proved to myself that I was good, when I came into the company I felt like I was in the wrong job, failed thesis, no real coding experience outside of data science machine learning projects; it was pretty scary. I looked at my boss and people who were coding around me thinking these guys have gods brains “how?”, but then I think when I started to get good was during the 6th and 7th months of the role. That is when I actually developed an understanding of how all these tools interlinked, what the actual end goal was, then my entrepreneurial mindset clicked into place, and I started thinking of ways on how I can build on this project and make it better, what the problems are; I started becoming independent.

The only thing this really taught me, was that I kept failing and struggling because of my issues with organisation and time-management. I had so much unfinished crap, that I wanted to get done; some of it was not important, however a lot of it was. I had the opportunity to do this, and also get back into shape. Most of this was due to my ambition to do well, and this led me to take on too many things at once, although ambition without organisation either leads to a dream or failure.

Now looking back, there are positives, if I had continued with Actuarial Science, I would have not found Data Science and then got into programming. If I had passed my thesis, I think that I would have still potentially lost my job, so I graduated after my 9 month contract, and this left the graduation window open. I was alright, but this still cost me a lot of grief. Looking back, if I had listened to my Father and got into programming in lockdown, then just did Data Science MSc after lockdown in Southampton, and let go of any toxic friends and surrounded myself with academic people, I would have been in a good role by 2022, working for almost 2/3 years now.

Anyways, everything happens for a reason, just take the positives but LEARN THE LESSONS and move on. My disorganisation was primarily caused by me doing way too much, because I wanted recognition, validation, glory and also to feel competent and set an example, but this ended up in jeopardy every time. It is always good to approach ambition with caution, focus on the priorities which matter most by assessing the consequences of what would happen, and then plan accordingly with a good estimate based on how much YOU KNOW you can achieve.

Discipline

Motivation lasts temporarily, but discipline lasts forever. I do remember back in the days where I went gym everyday, and posted a body transformation on Facebook where I lost 20kg and went from 88kg to 68kg that they quote I held dear to myself was that “Consistency is key”. No matter how I felt on a certain day, I made sure that I went to the gym, made sure that I was working out or doing some form of exercise. This can be transitioned into everything, and it will make you successful wherever you go. Let us incorporate this with consistently coding 3 hours a day, or consistently doing Leetcode practice problems. Discipline is the key to being good at what you do. I think this also ties in with consistently pushing yourself out of your comfort zone, or thinking of new ways to work smarter, as you can be disciplined but you can have a much smarter way of working. Although, I think aim is to explore a way of working which works well for you, then once you have a framework, be disciplined and this will lead to consistency which will always give results. Organisation comes into play here, but also when you aim to disciplined, organisation just works its way into your life funnily enough. If I set myself a goal that I have to go gym everyday for 2 hours, I have to program for 3 hours, then I would have to work around this and plan my day, which then makes life a lot easier.

I remember when I was 20/21, I always neglected discipline and organisation, as I thought “fuck it, lets life on the edge and have fun, why plan everything”. Now this is definitely tempting, and I actually lived by this after lockdown, but there are so many consequences behind it, and all this mindset leads to is L’s. I think there is a time and a place, for example if you are solo travelling, it is fine to let loose and see where the wind takes you, but normally planning is a much better way, it is better to be safe than sorry, and not planning can either lead to an adventure or a disaster. In work, this is the worst mindset to have. I did approach it with this mindset, but then learnt a lot on the job of what to do and what not to do, then realised I had a lot of work to do.

Once you hit work life, and even at university life, it is essential to make sure you maintain discipline in order to reach success. For me, I remember going to the gym was essentially my way of ensuring the baseline for my success, not how much I lift etc. but essentially maintaining a constant improvement in my physique translated into my life. Most people say “Healthy Body, Healthy Mind”, and this is true, I often find when I am working on my body, my mind was more at peace, and when my body was in bad shape, I was mainly incredibly unhappy.

Ability to say “No”

This is one that I struggled with the most. My issues were predominantly lack of organisation and a weak ability to say no. Even when I was in my own world, I sometimes would just say “yes” before even realising what other people would say. This can go so far, and when I look back in retrospective, this was another thing that can lead to disorganisation and disrupt your flow. It ties in with how much value yourself based on other people’s opinions. Being a people pleaser will never lead to being successful, since you cannot say no to people, then you will continue to live by others expectations other than your own, and in the long run you cannot really be organised and disciplined if you keep saying yes to the nights out, yes to the drinks, yes to the extra work someone else has given you. It is fine to say no, people will respect it more as it shows you have boundaries but MORE importantly, you will end up happier and more confident. I often find people who say no more, especially to certain things actually have more confidence in themselves.

Even with colleagues and people giving you work, it is okay to prioritise this a bit, but not over your own work, and if you have an impending deadline, that should be a priority. You are allowed to push back, and this will not get you in trouble, unless a collective agreement has been made then you are obligated to follow it.

Saying No to:

• Toxic people
• Extra work which you are not obligated to do

Resourceful

Being resourceful comes hand in hand with working smart and it is something that is overlooked a lot by most people. Most people focus on being organised and disciplined, which is good, although they forget the importance of being resourceful. This can really make a difference, since you can revise of one resource which will get you nowhere, or you can use the right resources and work smart, really limiting the amount of time you need to get good results.

An example of this was in my school, a lot of the teachers would recommend you to read and understand an entire textbook which was simply huge, and really not condensed enough for the exam. Students were encouraged to read and understand it, although I knew this was crazy for GCSE level. To sit and understand 3 enormous textbooks for a few exams at GCSE level, surely there must be a more efficient and succint way right? I mean the exams were an hour each, there is absolutely no way in hell, that you would be required to learn all of this and certainly no way you will be tested on this. I found 3/4 good resources, then just used those and ended up getting A * in every single exam at GCSE. I will talk about this in another post, but what I can tell you is that there are always ways out there of finding more efficient methods of revising, working or whatever it is you do.

This can also be a limitation, as when you are solved with a problem, it is always best to think outside the box as much as you can and be resilient in solving this. This resilience and outside of the box thinking along with the ability to grasp concepts quickly makes a good programmer, and are three fundamental attributes which are needed. There was a time when I became reliant on my resourcefulness, that I would use this to try and solve a new problem and then when I could not find a resource, I would give up quickly. No! Hustle, hustle, hustle, make sure that you do almost anything you can before trying to find up and asking someone for help. Unless it was not a complete priority, but in most cases with work, hustling and trying to find a solution will build your self-confidence a lot, and if you can combine this with being resource, constantly finding new ways of working smarter, then its one route to the sky being the limit. This brings us onto resilience. Also if you make a mistake after hustling, then you learn from it after realising where you went wrong, you are 10x more likely to not make that mistake again.

Resilience

This is one key trait to someone who never gives up and these people are built different and will always be successful. I remember one of my friends who I met back in 2021, he was skinny shy and a pretty awkward person. You could tell he had a mindset, as he said I go gym everyday, which reminded me of myself the year before. He is a quant trader now, and got a first-class in his integrated masters, but on top of that he built a body like a Greek god. I was on this path too, but I fell off primarily due to lack of resilience, it is important to also focus on your weaknesses and strengths, to assess what can actually stop you reaching your potential. Anyways, when I saw him a few years later, he just had this insurmountable confidence of “I do not even know what give up means” which is the reason why he became so successful.

I remember I was answering a question in year 5, and it was only a one mark question. It just asked “Why is the sun affiliated with a girl and the moon affiliated with a boy?”. This was so confusing, and I dug deep and wrote a page on how the sun was affiliated with more feminine traits, and the boy was affiliated with more masculine traits. Then I realised time was up, and I did not get the mark, the answer was simply “To give them characters”. I was left in tears and shouted at my grandma “I hate this, it is so hard.” But it did teach me a big lesson, to just keep it simple, sometimes less is better, but also that hustle taught me how important it was to practice time management and only allocate a certain amount of time to specific questions; if you do not know the answer come back to it later, or give it an educated guess. Also, I remembered this answer much better, so when the next question came similar, I already knew what to write without hesitation. Now, had I just looked at the answer, I would not have remembered it and learnt these lessons.

Self – Confidence

Self-confidence is often misunderstood. Many people equate it with being outgoing, fit, or attractive—traits commonly associated with extroverts. While these external qualities can help someone appear confident, true confidence is much deeper. It’s an inner sense of self-belief and control, not dependent on external validation.

Confidence for me comes from being good at what I do, and also being able to have a strong sense of self and self-control

The essence of self-confidence can be broken down into these parts:

• Competence: Being good at what you do. Mastery in any field naturally builds self-assurance.
• Self-Integrity: A strong sense of self and the ability to remain composed and in control, even in difficult situations.

In order to develop this, it is important to:

• Develop confidence
  • Setting clear goals: Define what you would like to achieve in personal or professional lives.
  • Learn and practice: Confidence grows when you dedicate time to mastering skills. Whether it’s coding, cooking, or fitness, small, consistent efforts pay off.
  • Celebrate progress: Acknowledge your achievements, no matter how small.
• Cultivating Self-Awareness
  • Knowing you values: Understand what matters to you, then the actions will align with values, then confidence will grow naturally
  • Accepting Yourself: Embrace the flaws and imperfections; confidence is not about being flawless; it is about being authentic
• Build Mental Resilience
  • Face Fears: Calculated risks and a step out of the comfort zone will lead to success, but this has to be calculated; this can build a sense of self.
  • Handle Rejection: Rejection is better than regret. Do not confuse sense of worth with rejection.
  • Practice Self-Compassion: Treat yourself as you would with a close friend, be kind and encouraging, even when you fail.
• Strengthen Self-Control
  • Manage Emotions: Learn to respond thoughtfully than react impulsively
  • Create Discipline: Confidence grows when you can rely on yourself to follow through with commitments.
  • Set Boundaries: Confidence means saying no when necessary and prioritising your well-being

There are so many things, here and lots of different points, which can all seem like a lot to do, but I think just building a framework is the best way to approach this and build yourself into a successful person. People do not believe they can become successful, but EVERYONE can be successful, it really is down to those who know HOW to do it and for THEMSELVES. Everyone is different, find a framework which works for you, what will work for me will not work for you etc.

Some people do not care, they just want to have good people around them and enjoyable experiences and get by, do the work get it done, then their passions and happiness lies outside of work. These people actually have a lot of things that work well for them, as they do not really want to do it that much, but they just get it done and then leave. So they just do their job, keep it simple, it pays the bills, whatever, bye. Others find a lot more passion within their work, which I am and want to continuously strive to improve themselves and find new ways of doing things and become better. I definitely am one of these people, although it can be a downfall, as if everyone has to do things they do not want to do when they work, and this is where the people who do not care but just get it done actually find it easier.

Weaknesses

I have split this up into work weaknesses, but also personal weaknesses.

In terms of weaknesses related to work and productivity, I have:

• Put too much on my plate but only get things half done before moving on to another task
• Poor time management due to lack of discipline and inability to stay focused, which makes it take longer to get things done
• Incorrect estimates about how much I can get done within a certain period of time

Anyways, I have talked a lot about what I have observed and come to the conclusion of what makes a successful person. But that is not it, you have to have the self-awareness to also know your weaknesses well and how to deal with them in order to be successful, there are two sides to the coin. Here are some:

• Need for Validation
• Inability to handle criticism
• Ignoring red flags and surrounding yourself with the wrong people

I think my need for validation was probably my biggest weakness. It can be turned into a strength, but for me it was very difficult to manage, because for a while when I was lost, I think my natural go-to solution was to gain validation from someone/ something else because things were not going the way I wanted them to go. Every time I would go through a rough phase, or do something I know I should not have done, or had a very unproductive day, I would need to have some sort of dopamine hit, or spend time with friends, make an excuse and try to get justification from the people around me that it was okay. A lot of people do this more than they think and do not realise it.

I remember one girl opening a fitness account in my school, and the second picture she posted was of her eating ice cream saying “it is okay to enjoy having food once in a while, like why restrict yourself” and then she continually tried to justify that it was okay to enjoy eating the unhealthy food. Now, I know that people are fat-shamed and really struggle with how others perceive their weight, other people are insecure and unhappy and want to make them feel worse about themselves and feel better about it if there life it not going well etc. It is easy to get wrapped up in this, everyone has, but in this situation, looking back, if I was doing that, I would have realised that I need to truly accept and understand WHY I did that. Not why I posted it, but why I feel the need to eat ice cream and justify it. Societal, familial and friendly pressure causes you to feel inadequate, so you want to justify and feel accepted and you need that validation to do so. This leads me to think about most confident people just do not care what other people think. They do not feel the need to constantly justify, seek validation or answer to the rest of people and society, they are solely focused on doing things for themselves, and not for the gratification of others, and do not worry about that others really think. For me, I think my problem was I did not have a way of being able to truly understand people and their intentions; it is important to know when to take things with a pinch of salt or on the chin, and when to take things personally or take it on board.

When people used to say to me when I was younger, stop caring what others people think, I had absolutely no clue how to or how this was even possible. Then I realised that I had no sense of self, I was just constantly working and doing things to please others or build an image of myself, and it actually takes time to build up something for yourself that you want to do, without any justification or validation from someone else. It took a while, but I thought about all the times I was most happy, and then tried to understand why I was happy.

This takes me back to the second year of university, where I was hustling to work really hard and then made a lot of progress in the gym. I would hit gym every single day without fail, and then the consistency made me become very confident. I did not really care what others thought at all, or about going out, I was solely focused on just getting into the best shape of my life, and getting good grades, my academia followed through and I started doing really well, I was building towards something. This was a point in my life where I did not care what girls thought about me, what anybody really thought about me to be honest, I just knew what I wanted to do. I ended up becoming a lot more happier and more confident in social situations, some people did not like it because they said “oh you have become boring, you used to go out blah blah”, but I did not care, I was on a journey and if you are not with it then bye. It is important to be ruthless and prioritise what you want for yourself; also take what other people’s opinions of this with a pinch of salt too. I remember when this focus changed towards me trying to work out to impress other people after a heartbreak, I felt lost, and then I needed help. I was constantly worrying about what others thought more after this, as it happened right in lockdown, and I did not realise I had an absolute store of self-esteem issues from my childhood which I had to deal with when I finally opened up to a girl and found a connection. A lot of it was low self-acceptance, feeling like I was nothing without my skills and hobbies (tennis, boxing, gym) and despite my studying maths, I did not really acknowledge how good it was, I also had no coaching or a mentor at this time. I became reliant on other people and lost my sense-of-self during this time, as I just wanted that connection back more than I wanted to sort myself out. When you do not love yourself, you love others a lot harder, and in a more painful way. It does always end up badly, and you will be surprised how many people who just have this in-built anxiety of not being able to express these thoughts, but it exists more than you think. For me it was crazy, since I lost my mum at the age of 11, but I did not really understand how it affected me. I thought that my life would be hard, and a lot of people would say “I am so sorry etc. etc.”. I was just happy that I was getting attention from it, I was young, I did not really understand at the time, it hurt a lot when she left, but I was too young to really comprehend it. I think when I grew older, I realised what had happened “very low self-esteem which led to people-pleasing, codependancy, low self-worth which was based on what other people would think, attention-seeking, narcissism to an extent and maybe contributed to me having ADHD”. I would try to get some sort of attention and sympathy from people, as I needed to be cared for, but I think it was difficult for people to understand it, including my parents. I reacted very badly to tough love, and I also was a nightmare of a kid 😉 but at the end of the day, I think I understood a lot more about myself.

Maybe I could write a book one day. But I would love to share my story and what I have taken from it in order for other people to learn from it.

So bottom line is, and a lot of people who have tough moments and go through hardships have issues, whether it be losing a loved one or getting cheated on, it can result in low self-esteem and it takes time to go from someone like this to someone self-confident. These experiences, sometimes you think “Why me? Why do I have to go through this?”. I went through a hell of a journey from when I was 20 to 24, but then I came out of it, after figuring out what I wanted to do with my life, and also understanding my weaknesses and what can be done to stop situations like this from happening. I think when people feel lost, they normally complain instead of ask themselves why, for me it was because of the people I was surrounding myself with, and I had not built an identity for myself which I was happy with (etc. I did not know what I wanted to get into or do with my life, what my purpose was, this can often lead us to be around people who are toxic and not good for you, but when you realise this, and the fact you have to leave, just give them an explanation and get out of there, even if it is by text, you do not have to really justify it, do whatever it takes to establish your peace, then figure it out from there).

Okay so back to this, a lot of my weaknesses came from me having undealt issues in the past, and not being able to understand them or how to deal with them. This is where therapy, and deep work helps, but sometimes, even therapy does not help because you are in a situation where you just cannot even express yourself, then you just start feeding them bullshit, or they do not even understand you. In this case, it is your experiences, and the time you take to yourself, journaling, deep work and being able to process this stuff, which will lead towards understanding yourself. Friends and close family members can help too, it is important to have open and honest conversations, sometimes they realise things you don’t. It is also very important to understand, that with dealing with people are manipulative, you do not need to give an explanation, just let go, they know exactly what they are doing, it is just they would never tell you.