Why Your Daily Activities Should Be Taking You Towards Your Goals.
Last weekend, I had a discussion with some of my students about their purpose, their goals and their objectives for life. They told me it is too hard to think about what they want to achieve in life, so they don’t bother. I wasn’t surprised by this answer and it saddens me that I was not surprised. Knowing what you want, your purpose or mission gives your daily activities a sense of purpose and direction. If you don’t know what you want, have no goals, no mission or purpose, then your daily activities will become a conveyor belt of checking off unimportant tasks and repeating the same meaningless activities the next day. A life I wouldn’t wish on my own worst enemy.
The sad truth is most people never spend time exploring and thinking about what they would like to do in their lives. They’ll spend hours planning what they will do at the weekend but spend no time thinking about what they will do with their lives. It’s as if they believe everything will work out exactly how they imagine it. They’ll have a fantastic career, a great family and social life and a long and happy retirement with an abundance of money to see them through.
Life is not an Instagram feed.
No, you won’t. Life doesn’t work like that. Life is not an Instagram feed. Life needs to be worked on. It needs to be harnessed, nourished and developed. It needs to be crafted every day. The books and articles you read, the work you do, the hobbies you have. These should all be taking you towards your goals, purpose and your objectives. That is living life. That is living with a purpose. Anything less is living irresponsibly. You will blame the government, your company, your family or your boss for your circumstances when in reality your lack of purpose, progress and happiness is a result of you not knowing what it is you want.
Positive things happen once you know what you want.
The most positive thing that happens once you discover your purpose or mission is daily trivialities, that are big dramas for most people, become tiny inconveniences to you. They no longer bother you. If they have no bearing on your mission or purpose you don’t let them worry you. You just deal with them as quickly as you can and you move on to what really matters — moving a step closer towards achieving your goals.
Ever since I can remember I have always enjoyed helping and teaching people. It’s what wakes me up in the morning and it’s what puts a smile on my face every day. It’s the reason I give away 90% of the content I produce each week. My dreams and goals are all connected in some way to helping more people. It’s why I have set myself the challenge to help one million people to become better organised and more productive by 2020. It’s the reason I read the books I read, it’s the reason I give up my Friday afternoons to record YouTube videos and it’s the reason I subscribe to the blogs and newsletters I do. It’s also the reason I exercise every day. I understand that to help, teach and influence more people I have to live a healthy life. I have to be in a ‘peak’ state every day and the only way I can do that is to eat healthily, exercise, read and learn and get enough sleep. Everything I do is run through the prism of; will this help people? That is my purpose.
The thing is, I never really knew my purpose until I was in my early thirties. I had always enjoyed training new people when they joined the company I was employed by. I had always enjoyed coaching athletes when I was a competitive runner, but my purpose — to help and teach people — was not obvious to me. It was only when I began pondering what I wanted to do with my life did I realise that the one thing that always brought enjoyment to me was when I was teaching or coaching. That’s when I quit being a lawyer in the UK and came to Korea to teach English. That was when my life changed and I have never looked back or had a moment of regret since.
Now would be a good time to start thinking about what you want.
We are now only a couple of months away from the end of 2018 and the beginning of a new year. Now would be the perfect time for you to take some time out of your busy life and begin pondering what you want to do with your amazing life. You too may find that you get the greatest joy from helping people achieve their potential. You may discover that you get the greatest pleasure from developing your skills so you can achieve a better position in your career. No matter what it is, there will be something that brings joy to your life. All you need do is begin with a piece of paper or a note in your notes app on your phone and start collecting ideas. Whatever comes to mind. As your list grows you will start to see patterns, things that are connected. When you see that pattern and those connections, you will be seeing what it is you want to do with your life. When you begin developing those connections and patterns and discovering ways you can turn them into goals and objectives you are well on your way to living a life of purpose.
If you want to learn how to turn your ideas and dreams into actionable goals and to make time to achieve those goals then my Time And Life Mastery online course is designed to do just that. The course helps you to find the things you want to achieve in life and takes you on a journey to develop those ideas into daily activities so as each day comes you move a little closer towards achieving them.
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My purpose is to help 1 million people by 2020 to live the lives they desire. To help people find happiness and become better organised and more productive so they can do more of the important things in life.
If you would like to learn more about the work I do, and how I can help you to become better organised and more productive, you can visit my website or you can say hello on Twitter, YouTube or Facebook and subscribe to my weekly newsletter right here.