#026 – Goals vs Ways of Life

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Bringing 5 interesting ideas to your inbox every Thursday morning to ignite your curiosity and drive your growth.

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read time 3 minutes 

#026 at a Glance:

• Quote that will get you thinking: The man who struggles...

• Podcast you should listen to: The 5-time World’s Fittest Man.

• Mental Model: Goals vs Ways of Life.

• Hack you should try: Batching your time.

• Tweet I liked: Your life actually changes overnight...

Quote that will get you thinking:

An incredible quote from one of my best mates. So insightful. So well articulated.

Side note – he’s running a marathon in just under 2 weeks’ time with another Five to Thrive subscriber (shout-out to Cooper!) for Bloody Long Day. An awesome charity supporting an awesome cause. Click the link here to donate…

I love getting behind and supporting the people in this community that we’re building together. Makes me so happy.

Please keep me posted with all of the cool shit you guys get up to!

Podcast you should listen to:

James Smith x Mat Fraser

Mat Fraser is a retired Canadian-American professional CrossFit athlete who holds the record of being the only male athlete to ever be named The World’s Fittest Man FIVE TIMES.

Check out this sick hype video to get a gist of who this guy really is:

To be classified as the World’s Fittest Man, you need to win the CrossFit games – an annual event that tests athletes’ fitness skills across various domains including strength, endurance, speed, agility, and coordination.

It’s the absolute pinnacle of all-round, high-performance fitness.

James Smith and Mat sat down for an 83-minute chat which went by in the blink of an from my perspective as a listener. Expect to learn how to tap into your mind’s potential, how to overcome the relationship between mental and physical limitations, the importance of doing hard things, and how to surround yourself with a tribe that will propel you to being the best version of yourself whilst helping others do the same.

An extremely eye-opening conversation for me personally.

Listen on Spotify here. Listen on Apple Podcasts here. Watch on YouTube here.

Mental Model:

Goals vs Ways of Life 

I came across a fascinating mental model last week which is summarised brilliantly by Hunter S. Thompson:

"Beware of looking for goals, look for a way of life. Decide how you want to live and then see what you can do to make a living within that way of life."

Reflecting on this more and more, I realise how profound it truly is.

So often (and maybe each of you can relate), my goals are too finite.

What do I mean by having finite goals?

They have definitive start and end points. They begin on a certain date and end once a certain objective has been ultimately achieved or a new set of circumstances has eventuated. They are extremely binary.

• “I must do this so then I can achieve that...”

• “Once I do that, then I can have this...”

• “When I become successful at X, I will be able to do Y…”

• Etc.

In other words, each goal simply serves as a means to an end.

However, the point that Hunter S. Thompson is making is this:

Design your life by focusing solely on doing what you love, AND THEN search for ways to make a living WITHIN those parameters.

For example, let’s take a guy who lives in regional NSW but loves to surf. He feels absolutely and utterly at home in the water. All he knows is that he wants to go through life spending as much time in and around the ocean as possible. Awesome. Sounds like an ideal situation to me.

In order to then materialise his ideal lifestyle, he essentially has two options:

1. Work for someone else/start his own business in a field entirely different from surfing. Build up some money, buy some assets, and then when he is in the financial position to do so (if he ever is able to actually successfully achieve it), move to a coastal town/city and surf to his heart’s content.

2. Move to a coastal town/city from the very beginning, live the lifestyle which he is aspiring to enjoy, and then figure out a way to make a living within that way of life. Whether it’s starting a surf school teaching beginners or even running a small e-commerce business that provides him sufficient income to fund his lifestyle.

See the difference?

In our society, most people tend to go for option 1. We chase down option 1, endlessly striving towards the lifestyle that option 2 readily provides.

The sad part is most people choose option 1 and never even get to the ‘good’ bit.

Something to think about…

Hack you should try:

Batching Your Time

Awesome productivity hack courtesy of Tim Ferriss this week.

It has shifted the way I now approach tasks and allocate my time.

Watch Tim explain it here (in 60 seconds). Game changer.

Tweet I liked:

That’s all for this week, thanks for reading!

Grateful for your support.

Stay hungry, stay humble, & stay curious. ⚡

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