How to Get What You Want

The only way to live how you want is to know how you want to live. Pretty simple, pretty straightforward. But how often? Have you thought about that? How often do you think about that? Have you ever thought about that? And I guess it’s not obvious. There’s sometimes there’s no reason to think about that. Sometimes there’s no reason to question the status quo, sometimes there’s no reason to be thinking those kinds of thoughts are considering that we’re all carried along by the current, we’ve got lots of responsibilities and obligations and duties, and jobs and bills, and all that stuff, all going on at once, all the time. And an never ending stream of more stuff, constantly getting piled on the whole year, wants something done, give it to a busy person, kind of a thing. And we’re all busy, and, and all of that, but I think that there is immense value in taking that step back and ask yourself that question of, you know, how what, what do I really want my life to look like? And that might any work close to that? Am I doing exactly that? Oftentimes, for us to make changes, something bad has to happen. We have to hit rock bottom, or a health scare will motivate us to change our diets or to start exercising or to, you know, whatever, do something that we’ve been putting off to buy life insurance. And it’s one of those things, it’s like, well, why can’t I just be more proactive about this? Why can’t I just do these things without having my back against the wall? And having to do something, you know, extreme? That’s part of the human experience is part of the challenge of being a human being I suppose. So. Certainly, COVID has raised a lot of those questions, or raised a lot of those questions. And now we as a society, are having those conversations, how do we police our communities? Should we get rid of all the police should be changed? The way that we’re doing it? Is everything the way that things are is just gotten great? How do we educate our kids? How do we respond to health emergencies? How do we how do we work? Do we? Do we just do all remote? Is the office environment a good thing or a bad thing? And again, kind of going back to the the main theme of what I wanted to share talk about today was really answering that question is the way that I’m living, is that how I really want to be living, I had the opportunity to speak this morning with a really, really, really smart person. His name’s Faisal hawk. And he was on on the podcast. So the episode would be coming out in a couple of weeks. So look forward to that, because he’s a very, very thoughtful and insightful entrepreneur, named to the top 100 Most Influential People in technology. So that’s, that’s pretty cool. And he has a new book called Lift that you’ll be able to check out. But he shared how somebody asked him, Where would you be if you had a choice? And his answer is right here doing exactly what I’m doing. So that’s a different way to think about the only way to live, how you want is to know how you want to live. So where would you be if you had a choice? Would you be where you are? Like, would you be doing what you’re doing? Would you physically be in the location that you were in? Would you be around the people that you’re around? Or would it be different when certain parts of that be different? So I’m super fond of saying there’s only 50 Saturdays in a year. I appreciate those 52. But 50 is a better number, at least for me. You have 5050 Saturdays a year, we only got one crack at life. So why not? Ask yourself that question and then answer that question. So are you where you want to be? Are you doing the things you want to do? Are you living the way that you want to live? And if the answer is, is kind of sort of not at all, whatever. Think about

how can I get closer to the kind of life that I’m interested in living, what can I be doing, to move in the direction of, of of that life? And I think, I think that that’s such a wonderful starting point. And I think I like to think about, for lack of a better term goal setting, or living in six areas. Because if I just said, you know, is, is, are things the way that you’re doing them exactly the way that you want to be doing them, that’s pretty abstract, it’s a little too big for me to pick up, I can’t, I don’t know that I can wrap my brain all the way around that. So I break it into six areas. I’d like to think about family, community, well being, career and financial, personal development, and then peace of mind. So for your family? What what what do you really, what would an ideal family situation look like for you, and perhaps you want to have a better relationship with the people in your family, maybe you want to start a family, maybe you’re a single person, and you want to find a partner, and you want to have kids, and all that. So whatever it is, and from a community standpoint, the famous Harvard Harvard grant study, if you’re not familiar with that, definitely check it out. It tracked young people all the way through, through through old age, and they’re trying to figure out what makes for a rich and happy life. And they figured out that it’s, it’s it’s human connection, that’s really what makes us happy. So what is your community? What would you like it to be? How can you nurture, and expand and grow and strengthen your existing community? If you want to find a new one? What is that? From a personal development standpoint? What are you interested in learning just for the sake of learning? Hobbies, skills, whatever? What What would you like to be doing more of, from a financial from a career standpoint? You know, if you’re not doing the kind of work that you want to be doing, what can you do? How can you position yourself to be able to pursue that kind of work? From a wellbeing standpoint, we all need to get stronger, I need to be physically stronger and healthier. I want to be mentally stronger and healthier. I want to be emotionally stronger and healthier. What about you? What? What can you be doing to nurture and strengthen those things? And then from a peace of mind standpoint, I mean, we could all use more of that. How can you find more peace of mind, if you want to pick up a spiritual practice, perhaps you want to do yoga, you want to just spend more time alone, you want to have free time throughout the course of the day, so you don’t feel like you’re just getting dragged from one thing to another. And you’re always played from behind, because that’s not a healthy thing. And we certainly all been there, we’ve all felt that way. So those are the six areas I’d like to think about. And I like to think about them so much that I created a created a course which is free. So you can go to I’ll just link it in the, in the notes of the show, of where you can find that. And I’m, I’m proud of the way that it’s structured and the flow of it, I think it’d be very beneficial in helping you figure out, hey, this is really how I want my life to look. And then it’s a function of embracing incremental change to get there. The last thing I want you to do is to throw the baby out the bathwater and say, okay, you know, we’re just gonna do a reset here. Like all the old Nintendo, do video games today have a reset button, I haven’t played one of them in a long time, you just hit the reset button next to the power button, just start the whole program over. I don’t want you to do that. I want you to take a more measured approach to making changes. I think that right now we are we have fallen into this trap of when I don’t like something, I just simply move on from it. Through our phones, you and I both know that we’re constantly getting dopamine hits from it. Right, we have this little dopamine dispenser at our disposal all the time. And it’s social media or it’s buying something with one click or it’s ordering food or it’s whatever it is, I can immediately change my mood or my my frame of mind by simply doing something else. And while that’s great, there’s certainly wonderful conveniences and benefits to that. I also think that there’s also benefit in being uncomfortable and leaning into discomfort and working through and addressing that as opposed to just covering up covering it up with with with triviality or even.

I don’t even know if if that’s the right term. You think you understand what I’m saying. So, embrace the process, sit in your discomfort, ruminate on it, and come up with a plan for it. getting what you want. I think you can have most anything that you want in life, as long as you get clear what that is. And then you start working in service of of getting it. It’s where we’ve got this amazing superpower, to think about the life that we want. Think about the things we want to do and the people that we want to share our lives with. And then to actually make plans for making that vision, our actual reality. And then you have the ability to execute on it. You’re somebody who can have the life that you want. You can have whatever you want. But it’s gonna take work. You can do hard things. You’re absolutely somebody that can ply yourself. do hard things. Get what you want. So ask yourself, where would you be if you had a choice? And then remember, the only way to live how you want is to know how you want to live. Get to work.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai