Where are you now?
I don’t want my blog to be all about recommending books all the time, but it’s important to talk about the tools that helped me move forward at the beginning of this journey because they are part of my story.
167 days ago, I was in a horrible state of desperation because I felt like not a single thing in my life was going right. And the truth is, being in a huge city, alone and without direction, is not exactly the ideal setting when you’re going through a quarter-life crisis (a bit delayed crisis, haha).
Ten years ago, I was living in Aachen, a city in Germany located in the tri-border area with the Netherlands and Belgium. I was in a high school exchange program with an exchange organization. In this program, we were assigned volunteers who advised us during the process, but in my case, my volunteer was a jerk, so I ended up becoming friends with another volunteer who was studying at the University of Maastricht, a city in the Netherlands.
I went to visit him early in my exchange, and I fell in love with Maastricht, but that’s another story. What isn’t another story is that in my friend’s room, a list was hanging on the wall. It caught my attention so much that I took a photo, transcribed it, and put it up in my own room.
Years later, I found out that this list was actually a list of chapters from a book called The Success Principles written by Jack Canfield.
Later, my German host dad gave me what would be my first self-help book, the famous The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens by the son of the original author. My life changed forever from that moment because it introduced me to the world of personal development.
The problem is… over time, I grew to resent these books and this type of content, not just because it often felt toxic and overly optimistic, but also because it evolved into what’s now known as “hustle culture,” which eventually killed my desire to read that kind of content.
Many miserable years of my life passed until I found myself in Madrid, exactly 167 days ago. I was so desperate that anything I did was better than staying in that situation.
In a situation like that, you don’t care about anything. If someone promises you that reading a book and following its steps will get you where you want to go, you have no choice but to follow it because it’s better to follow that than stay in the same place. So there I went, following the book that crossed my path 10 years ago.
Unlike other books, this one takes you step by step, chapter by chapter, guiding you toward where you want to go, and it’s a great guide to start with. I started reading one chapter a day to implement everything gradually in my life instead of devouring the whole book at once, and the truth is, it really helped me. But the most important thing is the first chapter…
Being 100% responsible.
This isn’t something unique to this book. It’s in The 7 Habits and in many other personal development books, and honestly, it’s something that, at least for me, pops up everywhere, even when I open the fridge.
When this happens, you have two options: either it reminds you of a key success principle, or you get tired of it and ignore it completely because you’re fed up with it.
When you get fed up, you end up like me, wandering through life angry that nothing works out for you… until one day, one magical night… everything goes to hell, and you have no choice but to admit that if you’re not where you want to be, it’s because of nothing more and nothing less than your own responsibility.
Obviously, there are circles of responsibility; you can’t change the weather or the government, but among the things you can change and take action on to improve your situation, there are things far more powerful than the weather or the government.
Taking responsibility for myself meant saying, “Okay, all these goals I wanted to achieve in 2023 didn’t happen because I didn’t do what I needed to do to make them happen.” If I don’t have an album released, it’s because I didn’t make it happen, period.
So, I quietly swallowed my excuses and started working because no one was going to come and save me from that situation.
I was told I wasn’t good at producing (by people with authority)… and I refused to let them be right. So, since the results don’t lie, I decided to focus on what would really give me the opportunity to sing and tell my story on my own… by stopping the crying and starting to produce my own music and sing it.
These past months, I must say that… between tears and tantrums, I took responsibility for my situation and sat down to produce.
I’m not saying I’m the new Bizarrap, but I must say that I started taking my career seriously in May 2024, I’ve been producing almost daily since then, and only a week ago did I realize… how much I’ve progressed.
It shows in the quality of my work compared to when I started in May. Compared to my last song in 2023… it shows in how much I enjoy my music. In how I’ve changed my methods, in how I’ve committed to studying, acquiring knowledge, and improving as a professional.
I think that’s not just responsibility but also the courage to move forward. Before, I was really afraid of the idea of putting myself out there. I don’t think that fear has completely gone away… in fact, I still experience resistance daily, to be honest, but at least now I fight against it.
I really got my sh*t together, set goals, and am working to make them happen. With all the setbacks, what matters is getting back up.
Again, results don’t lie, and if you’re not where you want to be, it’s nobody’s fault but your own.
It’s great that the first chapter of the book is “being 100% responsible” because why would you follow the next steps if you’re not going to take responsibility for the results you’ll get when you start following them? Changing is a long process, but it’s worth it. Another book I’ll recommend is The Pivot Year by Brianna Wiest. The book takes you on a 365-day journey during what would be the year you decide to change your life completely. The idea of this book is to read one page a day for a year, as each one offers a reflection for that day as the year progresses. It doesn’t start on January 1st or anything like that; it starts the day you decide. For me, that was April 9th, 2024, but for someone else, it could be another day. It inspires you not to wait, to make the change immediately, but at the same time, to be patient with the process.
Although I sometimes think the person I saw in my reflection 167 days ago seems like the same person today, the reality is, that many things have changed. Maybe I’m still not ready to go back to Madrid, but I know that the day I do, I’ll be prepared to do so. I’ll know exactly who I am, and above all, I’ll know that I’m 100% responsible.
Before I go, one of the tools that helped me the most during this time is, precisely, daily journaling. Next week, I’ll talk about that, but for now, I’d like to leave a question to invite reflection:
In what area of your life are you letting a lack of responsibility affect you?
Good luck, haha.
For now, I’m signing off until next week.
XO,
Max.