3 Ordinary Steps on How to Live an Extraordinary Life
We’ve all been sold the dream that our life will play out like the stories we consumed as a child. A place where everything works itself out at the conclusion of a 30-minute TV episode.
Not every road to success looks as glamorous as it does on a Friday night’s silver screen.
So, if we want to live extraordinarily, we have to ask ourselves:
How we do get there? How do we really, I mean really, start to achieve a life that we can look back on and say “I lived”?
Define Success
What does success mean to you?
Does it mean hopping from city to city and rubbing elbows with start-up founders at roof-top parties?
Or maybe it means watching your children grow up and spend time with them on your terms?
Maybe your goals are somewhere in between or you might not even know your goals.
That’s okay. That’s why I love Brian Tracy’s method.
My man Brian knows how to get the human mind to be honest with oneself. He found that in 30 seconds, you pretty much know what your goals are as if you spent 3 hours on the topic.
Visualize what you want in each area of your life 5, 10, 15 years from now. Although that’s hard to do, try to do this for each area of your life. And be honest with yourself when you think about the following areas in your life:
- Business/career
- Family/relationships
- Finances
- Health
- Social life/community
Literally, take 30 seconds for each area. Write your top 3 current goals. Write them as if you’d already accomplished them. Do it on paper, in present tense, in the first person.
The key thing is, identify the goal in each area of your life that has the biggest impact.
See Also: 20 Qualities for A Successful Life
What Are You Willing to Lose?
To pick something up, you must put something down.
Let me say that in a different way.
If you want to start something different, you will inevitably spend less time doing something else. One cannot ‘create more time’ without shaving time down from something else.
I’m willing to listen to a man who gives away 97% of his wealth to charity and can still be a multi-billionaire. I’m talking, of course, about Warren Buffet.
His method is simple.
Take your top 30 goals. Now, cut them down to 5.
It’s hard, right? Those other 25 goals, those are your secondary goals that come in a close 2nd place, right?
Not at all.
Warren Buffet suggests that these are your ‘avoid at all cost’ goals.
I’m not going to lie. This exercise hurts for me to even attempt. So I combine Brian Tracy’s method and do top goals for each area of my life.
The point being, realize that you will never have enough time to do everything you want to do in your life. And that’s okay.
Because living intentionally (having a laser focus on a handful of things) will create more happiness for you. More happiness than lulling around, attempting a basket-full of things in your life.
See Also: Do You Have Too Many Goals? Here’s How to Prioritize Them
The Actions You Can Take Daily
The next step is to start breaking down those big ideas into actionable steps.
It needs to be dead-brain simple. Your goal may be to climb Mount Everest. But you sure wouldn’t slap that on your to-do list. It may look something like:
- Write out why I want to climb Mount Everest.
- Read first-hand accounts of people who have climbed Mount Everest successfully.
- Watch documentary about failed explorations and what went wrong.
- Find local mountaineer group to get more general knowledge.
- Hike local mountains to understand scale of difference.
- Maintain exercise regiment targeting muscle groups needed for climbing.
- Set date for Mount Everest excursion.
I’ve never climbed a mountain. I am guessing that it’s better to take action than to hope that one day a Mount Everest excursion will waltz itself into your life.
The real question is this:
What kind of life are you going to live from here on out? Are you ready to live an extraordinary life?
