Do More of What You Like

barcelona
If you rated your life on a scale from a 1-10, what would it be? Now break down the various components and do the same: rate your family situation, relationship with your significant other if you have one, work, and leisure time.

What do you like most about each of the areas you just rated? If you had the opportunity to do more of what you like in each area, I’m relatively certain that it would cause your scores to go up. So how can you do more of what you like?

I want you understand that you have the ability to direct in your life on a trajectory you choose. If you adhere to a few basic principles you can begin to influence the outcome.

1. Plan: If you want to do more of what you like, you have to think ahead. If you love to travel and dream of visiting Barcelona, pick a date (even if it’s 3 years from now) and start planning your itinerary. If you don’t make arrangements to do more of what you like, it will never happen. Do the same thing with work. Figure out what you’d like to be doing each day and start to plan how to do it. Whether it’s a role within your existing firm or a new venture altogether, put a plan in place to get there.

2. Manifest: Project yourself into your ideal situation. What would it be like if your plans were to come together? Tap into the feeling of the achievement. Make a mental picture of that achievement and go there as often as you can. Each time you go make the vision and the feeling even clearer.

3. Act: It’s great to identify what you want, put a plan against it, and visualize the outcome, but we still need to exert our influence to push the plan forward. That means taking action. Little happens without execution. You must create a process to move you in the direction you want to go. Take your plan and chunk it into daily or weekly tasks. Become diligent in checking them off. Continue to ensure that your tasks are in sync with where you want to go, track your progress and celebrate the incremental wins along the way.

4. Accept Responsibility: Once you acknowledge that you are in charge of the direction your life takes, you accept responsibility for the outcome. All it takes is a decision to do more of what you like and the discipline to stay on the path.

Keep me posted on your progress…