Motivation
The Ultimate Guide To Living On Purpose
When I look at my boys, I am both excited and terrified, for them. I am excited because their life’s journey has just started. At this stage of their young lives, they have no limitations, no worries, and they are highly motivated to invent their world.
My youngest voraciously attacks each day; he climbs, he falls, he cries, only to do it all over again. My oldest has a fearless imagination and is predisposed to telling wild stories; of sea monsters living in the midnight zone.
And failure for them is not the end of the story, it sets in motion a series of questions, learning moments and even goals.
“Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo.”
– Steve Jobs
Yes, you are unremarkably average
I am terrified because, their journey must yield to the reality that they must become members of society. An ordered community that has little tolerance for the round pegs in the square holes and covets conformity above all else.
As my boys comply, they will gradually lose the voracity to forge their path and eventually graduate to what Chris Guillebeau, author of The $100 Startup, defines as — the unremarkable average.
Guillebeau illustrates that the unremarkable average live by a set of rules, commandments if you will:
- Accept what people tell you at face value
- Don’t question authority
- Go to college because you’re supposed to, not because you want to learn something
- Go overseas once or twice in your life, to somewhere safe like England
- Don’t try to learn another language, everyone else will eventually learn English
- Think about starting your own business, but never do it.
- Think about writing a book, but never do it
- Get the largest mortgage you qualify for and spend 30 years paying for it
- Sit at a desk 40 hours a week for an average of 10 hours of productive work
- Don’t stand out or draw attention to yourself
- Jump through hoops. Check off boxes.
Does this life sound strangely familiar to you? Don’t be afraid to say, “Yes.” This set of rules is what conformity looks like, and no one will ever challenge you to be different.
Why regret will lead you to live on purpose
Richard Leider, the author of the Life Reimagined, found that most people regretted living an average life. They wished they had gotten more from their lives; to live on purpose.
Leider interviewed hundreds of people over the age of 65 and asked them one question, “If you could live your life over again what would you do differently?” And three themes kept repeating:
- I would be more reflective; I would stop to enjoy the moments of my life.
- I would be more courageous; I would not be fearful of not conforming.
- I would understand my purpose; because my life needs to matter.
If this small sample of people regretted living an average life, for the sake of argument, I would say that everyone has the same regret. So the real question is why are you living your life the way other people expect you too?
Tony Robbins explains that, “The difference with anyone that has followed through is that we are more afraid of what life would be like if we don’t follow through – than the person that is willing to settle with what they have and hoping that it will change.”
So fear if allowed can retard your choices. Now knowing this, how do you leverage fear and start taking small steps to living on purpose?
Committing to new skills will lead you to success
You commit to the skills that will give you the most freedom. And how do you know what skills you need? You need to ask yourself these two questions:
- What do I really want out of my life?
- What will I give back to my community for supporting me?
Now you turn your dream into a project and like any project you begin by creating three lists:
- A list of everything a project needs to be considered a good project
- A list of all the skills you don’t have that are important to the project’s success
- A list of everything you are afraid of and out of your control
At the beginning of most new projects, you will lack mastery of key skills that are critical for the success of the project. Understanding this issue is critical and will condition you to focus on those necessary skills.
You could focus on mastering all the skills at once. But experience has taught me that dividing your limited energy is counterproductive. Instead, first, focus on that one skill that will create the most freedom for you.
Once you have identified the skill to master, you must not only create a set of habits, but you must also have a provocative ”why” is the skill important. This strategy will place you in the proper mindset to keep you growing the new skill until it’s mastered.
Once you have mastered the necessary skills and you have achieved your goal — it becomes a game for you. Why – because progress is happiness. Therefore, you start asking yourself — “what is next” or “what else can I do to create more freedom and happiness in my life?”
You then revisit these two questions:
- What do I really want out of my life?
- What will I give back to my community for supporting me?
…and the game starts all over again.
The Iron Cowboy Story
A story that recently caught my attention is about James “Iron Cowboy” Lawrence. In 2014 Lawrence set a new world record by achieving a personal goal of the 50, 50, 50 — that’s 50 iron distance triathlon races in 50 consecutive days in 50 states.
If you are unfamiliar with what an iron distance triathlon is, here is the breakdown:
- A 2.4-mile swim
- An 112-mile bike ride
- A 26.2 marathon run
The interesting thing is that Lawrence is a regular guy, married with five kids. So what separates him from you — his why.
James ran a 4-mile fun race one Thanksgiving and during that race everything hurt — lungs, heart, legs, etc. At the end of that race Lawrence decided his life had to change. Why, because James was not going to allow that moment to define his life.
“It’s not a matter of how to get to the other side of that mountain. It’s which way am I going to do it — am I going to go over it, am I going to go around it, am I going to go through it? But ultimately at the end of the day I am going to make it to the other side of that mountain. Come hell or high water.”
– James Lawrence
James never thought that completing the 50, 50, 50 was not going to be worth it. He was on a mission, not only to prove to himself that it could be done. But teach his children that when you set a goal there needs to be 100% conviction that you will achieve that goal. And if you lack that conviction then there is no point in setting the goal, in the first place.
Lawrence’s mission had a welcomed side effect, James began to inspire others to do something outside of themselves. The hardest moments for James was not listening to the people that told him “you can’t do it.” It was shocking to him that it was the overwhelming majority of the people that told him – “You will fail. This is impossible.”
So he needed to turn down the volume on all the negativity and to focus on the things that are positive, uplifting and the things that drove him forward — to the finish line.
One of those positive moments for Lawrence was his 27th race. James helped a little boy named Dayton compete in his first triathlon. This race was particularly important to Lawrence because Dayton has cerebral palsy.
Conclusion
We spend a lot of our lives being average and focusing on the wrong thing. What if you took that same energy and focused on becoming a better version of you? What if you focused on helping others achieve their dreams?
Your goals may never get national attention like James “Iron Cowboy” Lawrence, but what if they help put a smile on the face of a boy like Dayton. Wouldn’t that be more amazing than living an unremarkably average life?