Becoming awesome at a number of things is an arduous task. We all want multiple skills which we are incredible at. We want people to be envious and we want to dominate within a number of areas we work within. I used to be the same. I wanted to be the best in the gym with the biggest physique while still working 12 hour days on my day job and my online properties. Couple these two things with a healthy lifestyle, an active social life and so on. It was becoming a bit of an impossible task.
Spending time in businesses throughout the years also reaffirmed this. Those company managing directors were incredible at their work but other areas of life were missing. They spend 15-16 hour days working so surely they weren’t spending quality time with their children? Their diet and weight seemed to be borderline unhealthy too. To be awesome in one area they were lacking in other KEY areas of life.
This ultimately got me thinking about my life and what I want to achieve on a professional, social and personal level. Do i want to be majorly successful in one area if it means sacrificing other areas?
Finding the sweet spot:
‘Sweet spot’ is extremely cliche and overused but in this instance it’s necessary. For each aspect of life you want to achieve at you ultimately need to find the ‘sweet spot’ where you are content. Becoming awesome at numerous parts of life is difficult but becoming good at many things is plausible.
In order to find the sweet spot for your achievements, goals and aspirations you essentially need to identify these things.
Identifying what you want from life:
Start by jotting down what you see as ‘objectives’ you want to achieve from your life. This may sound very business like but by establishing ways to measure a successful life can be a step towards achieving it.
To help you with this I have jotted down some of the objectives I currently hold for my own life. These will obviously develop and change as I get older and my path in life adjusts (raising a family, more work responsibility).
: Always be the husband my wife chose to marry
: Be a great support to friends and family on a compassionate and social level
: Maintain a lean physique without training becoming an obsession
: Eat clean but still enjoy food.
: Be successful on a professional level without compromising other life goals
: Reduce direct debits to increase self worth
Weighting these things as a %:
The key to becoming good at life is weighing the importance of things correctly. I used to be DESPERATE to be the best on a professional level but then as I evolved as a man my urge for such success waned. I realised that to achieve this other sacrifices would have to be made; something I didn’t want to do. I’m still completely committed to my work however my end goals are slightly different and my definition of success has changed.
After identifying my life objectives I placed a % weight against all of them in how important they were to me. You may be an excellent table tennis player and have a huge passion for it which takes up 20% of your available time. That’s fine however there needs to be a realisation that you will have less time to use on other goals. It’s a balancing act and finding the right balance is the key.
How can you achieve balance?
Achieving balance is the difficult part but it’s helped by having clear, definable objectives/goals. The next step is to break these main goals down into small, actionable points.
For example. My objective above was to ‘Maintain a lean physique without training becoming an obsession’.
I could achieve this through the following:
Lean lifestyle:
: Workout 4 times a week for 40-50 minutes
: Play badminton with a friend every Wednesday evening.
: Spend time with the wife enjoying outdoor activities
: Research new and fresh gym routines/techniques.
Crossovers:
The great thing about defining these key points is that you will have multiple crossover points. One point may pull two levers and match two objectives. For example: Playing badminton with a friend every Wednesday evening also helps me achieve my ‘Be a great support to friends and family on a compassionate and social level’ objective. Secondly spending time with the Wife doing some type of outdoor activity also helps me achieve the objective ‘Always be the husband my wife chose to marry’.
Although for some looking at life like this may seem a little bit intense it’s a great way of achieving what you want from your lifestyle. Because of the synergy between life and work there’s no reason why your life shouldn’t be documented like this. When goals are attainable and defined it makes sticking to things much easier. Furthermore once you see the crossovers between objectives it allows you to tailor and develop.
Life goals change and develop:
As they develop objectives may be tweaked, added and removed. Objectives however may be maintained yet reaching that goal may be different. For example: Working out 5 times a week may be tweaked to 3 times a week full body to free up time for other endeavours.
A move to a new house may bring a bigger garden which means you’re more interested in growing your own vegetables. This may result in more time required for eating clean which in turn may produce a reduction in exercise due to the physical exertion of maintaining a garden.
Or your life could change COMPLETELY and you may start making babies which means your objectives could be turned on their head. But this further enforces the need to write these things down as then you can alter your objectives based on the changing environment you live in.
Start defining today:
Becoming good at life is not easy. People are influenced constantly by outside factors, life throws all sorts of bullshit towards us when we least expect it.
Defining objectives now however can help you become good at life. Similar to work if you go into something blind without a strategy or an approach then you will struggle to maintain a standard. Becoming healthy is impossible if you don’t have a nutrition strategy. Being a brilliant friend can be tricky if you don’t make arrangements. Everything in life is based on plans and executing objectives so start defining them today!
Once you have defined objectives in mind you will become focused at achieving your goals. Saying you’re going to get healthy won’t drive you to the finish line but implementing something which is actionable will.
Good luck!
Image Source: Fallenwriters.com
photo by:
rosmary
The post You cannot be awesome at everything….so become good at life by setting objectives appeared first on Generation Y.