When you think about the bare bones of life, it’s quite simple. If you have a place to stay, generally you need to rest, clean yourself, eat and drink water, you’re living.
The idea of a life just doing that doesn’t seem especially appealing though, because as you do too much of the same thing, you can feel yourself stagnating, getting stuck. Doing this feels like nothing is getting done.
The question becomes “what do I want to build up on top of this framework?” I believe whatever it is, the primary goal is to “embiggen” yourself, where you are able to take up more space doing something that feels very yourself.
To do this, you should start to think about what you would like to do, but you aren’t prepared to do. Make a list of 100 things you’d like to do before you die.
To achieve this list, you probably need to do 5-10 of these a year. At this point, figure out what’s it going to take to do the following. Working out how to do it, and seeing the tradeoffs directly allow you to more strongly decide that you want to do something.
Next, you want to find an accountability partner, someone who shares a similar goal to you, who it’s immediately apparent that you have the goal in common. Doing this creates some natural good-faith competition.
If you’re especially concerned about failing this challenge, give the accountability partner money to hold on to for you. If you don’t complete the challenge, tell the accountability partner that the money becomes theirs. Nothing feels worse than losing a thousand dollars, being a chump, and not fulfilling your goals.
When in doubt, do something difficult for you. I suck at running. Despite this, I run 5ks. This grants me a degree of confidence I wouldn’t otherwise have. Find your 5K, and the world becomes a whole lot more conquerable.
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