Rare Air
When you are looking at your life, you have to ask yourself questions like:
- Where am I going?
- What is the reason I am here?
- Will anyone know that I have come this way?
None of these questions are easy.
They aren’t supposed to be.
Finding purpose in your life is one of the hardest things you will do. And with questions like these, a perfectly acceptable answer is ‘I don’t know.’
The reason this is acceptable is you probably haven’t been taught how to answer them for yourself.
You watch others, and it seems like owning an expensive car, or spending time on the beach, or doing what the beautiful people do, seems like the right thing.
Is that right for you? It might be, but I’ve found that’s a question only you can answer.
My mentor and coach Warren Rustand gave me three things to help manifest what I want in life. These three things are:
- Clarity of vision
- Certainty of intent, and
- The power of values.
With clarity of vision, certainty of intent, and the power of values, you can make the world what you want it to be. Not only for yourself, but for those around you as well.
The one thing I would like to add to his framework is relentless implementation.
Once you have your clarity of vision, and certainty of intent, and use the power of values to determine where you want to go, you must implement.
Relentlessly.
You can’t just sit there, imagine you have millions of dollars, and just expect it to appear.
You have to DO something about it.
But let’s back up for a moment. How do you obtain your clarity of vision. As I touched on before, those around you, those you admire, are a good place to start. Also, the people you don’t like. They have traits you don’t want to embody, so eliminate those.
The most effective process I’ve ever learned is the ‘mission to Mars’ exercise.
Imagine for a moment, you were in charge of a mission to Mars. You could only select 5 people, living or dead, to go with you. Who would they be?
Think for a moment. Don’t skip ahead. Stop and think.
Got them? Good.
Now what I want you to do is think about the attributes of those people. Why did you choose them? Did you choose Buddha, Jesus, or Mohammed? Did you choose Einstein, DaVinci, or Newton? Did you choose your grandfather, your cousin, or your best friend?
Don’t feel guilty if you didn’t choose anyone close to you, this was just an exercise. The purpose of which is to identify the traits of the people you selected, and why you selected them.
Did you choose a religious figure? If so, what values or things did they do that inspired you to select them? Did you choose a rich person, a highly skilled person, or an engineer? What are the traits you admire in them? Did you choose someone else, for some other reason?
Whatever the reasons, write them down. This will give you a clue about the values you admire, and starting to understand what values you want to represent to the world.
You can also use these people to identify your intent. Do you want to make an impact like they did? There is a reason you know their name. There is a reason they impacted you and you selected them. That can give you some clues about your own intent with your life.
What about your vision? What I’ve learned is with your vision and your goals, you should dream bigger. I accomplished my goals by 35, and that was tough! It turns out I am capable of so much more than I thought, and so are you! So what is the vision for your life? What are your goals and dreams?
To keep things simple, lets start with just one. Any one thing you want in life. Whatever it is. Do you have it? Is it clear to you? It can be large or small. Something that seems easy, like you’re almost there, or something that seems impossible from where you sit today.
Just choose one.
This is your first exercise in vision. You know what you want. You have a better understanding of your values, and your intent. Now, it’s time to take some action.
What do you have to do, today, to move you closer to that goal? Let’s say your goal is want to live in Paris. This doesn’t have to be your goal, I’m just using this as an example. If you want to live in Paris, one thing you could do today is do a little research about the cost of living in Paris. How much is rent? What neighborhoods would you want to live in? How much does a loaf of bread cost versus wherever you live now? That’s easy, and will help you plan.
What about tomorrow? Well, if you’re going to live in Paris, perhaps knowing French would be a good thing. There’s an app for that.
Do you see? You don’t have to be perfect in your plan, but if you know where you’re going, you can take steps today, and tomorrow, and next week, next month, next year that will put you on the path to getting there.
But it all depends on you. Your willingness to take relentless action to get there.
Now a quick reality check.
Some days it won’t seem like you’re making progress. Like what you’re doing isn’t panning out. Isn’t translating into any impact in the world.
I want to encourage you to stick with it.
Small things will start to align to make the world of possibilities coalesce into something you want to have happen.
Realize at first you’re going to suck at whatever it is you do, just know you will get better and better over time if you keep at it.
Keep doing it.
Stay on the path, and if you fall off, simply get back on it. That is the greatest gift of all.