I woke up this morning a tad groggy from the vino that flowed so freely the night before, but a smile soon graced my beard-covered face. It wasn’t because I woke up in surroundings that necessarily brought me joy or in a life that made me automatically happy, though both of those things are choices and perspectives I have chosen to act upon; nay, I woke up with a smile on my face because I am excited (read this: 6 Steps to Get Out of a Funk).
You may think, cool, he woke up excited. Easy enough when you’re traveling through South America and waking up to something new makes you excited. Alas, neither the surroundings nor the place had much of an effect on my mood. When you’re constantly traveling “the new” somehow becomes the regular. The drug that is seeing new things tempers. I woke up excited because of a dream, and not the dream where I wake up next to Adrianna Lima, though that’s a lovely dream, but the dream of my future; the dream of what can possibly be my reality if certain measures and actions are taken in the present.
I don’t wake up everyday with a big smile on my face, nor excited about what is to come. Very rarely, actually. But that is changing, and it’s changing because of a decision, because of actions I am taking, and the effect on my life has been immense already. More work completed at a higher level, sure, but the ideas, the creativity that excitement brings as you focus not on your limitations but on the possibilities that are dependent on action and discipline in the present.
You may fancy this: The Truth About Confidence and Success That You Don’t Want to Hear.
When you focus on the possibilities, both the good and the bad, that can occur with actions in this very moment, or a lack of action, you kick your own ass into another gear, filling your body with an energy that can’t sit still, that can’t be quelled, nor relegated to the couch. It’s an energy that requires of you to do that thing that your soul begs you to do with an audacity and a purpose that can only lead you to become some kind of badass that may once have only been, when locked in that place you go to when you lay your head down at night and enter the dream world where nothing is impossible and the fear of failure isn’t something that keeps you small, where this fear doesn’t act as a barrier between you and the life your soul wants you to lead, possibly even needs you to lead.
To be excited, even about life, is a gift. It’s an energy-giving gift that awakens something within yourself, the commander, the badass, the leader of the pack, the alpha, the big dog that wades mightily into the murky waters of life, claiming his place and his right by doing the things that we would normally avoid because we allow our fear to crush our spirits (read: The Truth About Happiness and Who Controls Your Fate).
To illustrate what I mean by all this, an insight into how I’ve forced this evolution…
The world of the internet is a wonderful thing. It allows you to reach far more people than you can, say, in a one-on-one training business. I love the internet, but I can’t stand it at the same time. It has the capacity for good, but is often used by us as a distraction. But that’s besides the point. The internet has allowed me to reach a lot of people. This site is seen worldwide, the articles read by people who don’t even speak the language they’re written in.
With that said, there’s something about a book that makes an even greater connection. We give more of our attention to a book than we do an article, and I think a book, or a number of books, are the next step in the evolution of this mission we’re on, a mission that won’t ever move from the site, but take on other forms on top of this base.
Writing a book is no small task. Anyone who’s actually written one, I applaud you, because as soon as you sit down and start writing, anything and everything pulls you from this mission. This is what’s happened to me in the past, the Resistance has constantly won the battle that requires me to delay the gratification that comes from publishing an article, something that gratifies me almost immediately because though it takes work, in comparison to writing a book it’s a very quick task.
The book, however, takes a long, long time to create. It requires hurdles and persistence and research and faith that all of this work will serve the market, and that they will see it’s value. It’s this time and the possibility that it could be wasted on something that just wasn’t what the market, you, wanted or needed, that kept me at an arm’s length from the book(s) I know deep down I have to write.
The change, and it’s coming, began with a decision that led to excitement about possibility and an utter distaste of what would be my life if I didn’t take action on the things that I deep down know I need to take action on. Here’s how I created this excitement, this fire under me arse to do what I felt needed to be done. They’re steps that, hopefully, you take today.
1. Create your dream.
What do you really want from life? Who do you want to become? What house to do you want to live in? Who do you want to be with? How do you want to think and act and every one of these questions must be answered with audacity, not in fear. Pretend that neither failure nor boundaries can occur or exist, even in your mind.
This has to be audacious. It can’t be something that doesn’t excite you. Put yourself in this place. Imagine yourself with this life, living in this house, doing this job, walking around in this body, riding that badass motorcycle or horse or truck. Create this persona that is you, just 10x better. A man with limitless potential – which you are already – who takes actions daily to create this potential in the flesh (please read: It’s Never Too Late To Chase Your Dreams)
Take a minute to do this now…
Great, now you’re excited.
Next step…
2. Determine what you need to do to create this life.
For my mission, there’s a lot I need to do. The one hurdle, actually there are many hurdles that we’ll leave for another article, but the one hurdle that I needed to leap over now, was the book thing. Being an author, a guy who has a real impact on people through that medium that is the written word, I need to get some books out there, and not just books, but books that stand time’s test.
That excitement of this dream is predicated on the fact that I actually write these things. That is a huge booster. For me to have my dream home, to have my horses and my dogs and that mindset, that massive impact, I need to sit down at my computer and bleed.
That can’t be where it ends, though, because fear motivates just as much as possibilities do.
And my fear, my greatest fear isn’t failure in the sense that the projects might flop and people may hate them, but the fear that in 5 or 10 years that I will have not improved, that who I am now, that what I’ve created is it.
My great fear is that the life I know now, which is a great life and one I’m very thankful for, but for it to be it, for me to just remain at this plateau forever is really, really scary to me. It’s even enough to make me wake up at 5am everyday and write.
What’s the thing you need to do to create this dream? Choose one or two things that need to be done within this next year. Leave the things you want to accomplish 4 or 5 or 6 years down the line for another time. For now, focus on this next year. My things are books, figure out what your things are.
So step 3…
3. What will happen if you don’t take action?
This is fear as your motivator. And it’s a great one.
If I don’t hustle and delay my gratification and work on those books and various other projects, it is very likely that where I am now is all I will experience, and I’ll likely even regress.
If you don’t take the actions that are required for you to realize your grand, epic, audacious dream, you will be relegated to this very existence, and you’ll likely regress into something worse.
That’s fucking scary!
With the dream and the fear as a motivation, being in them, experiencing them, having written them down and reviewed them daily, it makes it nearly impossible not to be excited about the possibilities that can come from that actions I’m taking.
What would happen if you didn’t act, daily, on that thing within the next year that will bring you closer to your dream? For one, you won’t create this dream, and you’ll likely remain as you are and slide into the familiar, monotonous life that so many of us simply accept. We give ourselves up to the fact that we can no longer grow and evolve and we start to die.
You’ll want to read this: Dreams Don’t Come True. Plans Come True.
Write down this fear, what would happen if you don’t act. Let it light a fire under your ass.
Is it that simple?
Of course not.
What if you don’t know the steps necessary for you to reach your dream?
The road will change. The book thing could be wrong. They could be the opposite of what I need to create that dream, but there’s only one way to find that out, and that’s to write the damn books.
Where you have your dream, and it doesn’t have to be that specific, there are steps you can take, even if you don’t know the specific steps, to move toward its realization. For one, improve. Read. Research. Study people who have in some way created something like your dream. That’s huge. If you don’t know the steps, figure them out.
Experiment. Be wrong. Prove to yourself that these steps you thought were the steps, aren’t the steps. Everything you do is a part of the process, and everything you don’t do brings you closer to that scary reality of never improving or going beyond where you are now.
That’s it.
A relatively short article in comparison to what we’ve put out lately, but hopefully it has it’s impact.
Write your dream. Spend a day creating it, researching archetypes, ideals, people who’ve done what you want to do even if you have to use bits and pieces of 10 people to make up your ideal, create it. It will change, but write down that man and that life you want to be and live. It’s powerful. It’s exciting to think that this could very well be your life. It’s awesome. I love it.
Anyway…
Then work backward, create the steps, the things you need to do even on a daily basis to make this happen. Waking up early. Reading for 30 minutes a day. Starting your own business. Quitting your job. Stop being so fearful of talking to women. There’s another one, as of late I’ve become a tad cynical about women. I’ve met a lot of women and the evidence put before me isn’t all that encouraging. Every now and then there’s a bright spot, though. Focus on the bright spot. There are endless amounts of great women out there, keep the faith, and don’t be a pussy, talk to them, say hi, and let the rest flow from there.
Then, write down the regression, the stagnation of what will happen if you don’t take the actions you need to take. This fear will propel you to action. Make it very real. Think about it. Be in it.
When you create this excitement nothing can stop you or hold you back from the guy you’re well on your way to becoming, a guy that accomplishes things daily, audacious tasks yearly, and has a firm grasp on his fate and the future he will realize because he’s in the midst of creating it right now.
Do this exercise tonight, please.
Tell me the details if you like, below. Get it out there into the world then work on creating it.
Be Legendary.
