You are here. But it is not where you want to be.
One of the great adventures of life is the journey between where you are now, and where you would like to be. The sad truth most people don’t go on it. They stay where they are. They are stuck. They have settled. But life can be so much more. For those brave enough to push on forward, there is an incredible adventure up ahead. To go to place called: potential. Most never reach it.
We get stuck at point A. We never get to point B. We never get to where we could B.
1, Embrace uncertainty.
We all have 6 human needs. One of them is certainty. And for many it is the most important. With a salary we know we will get paid at the end of each month. We will eat each day. We can go to bed at night sleep well knowing that we have a roof over our head and know all is good in the world.
One of the other human needs in uncertainty. It’s why, apart from bills, we like surprises. And why, even though a salary feels so damn certain, if the price for that salary is us doing something we have no love for, there will be a time when we have to decide to bury the dream, or chase it. That is the fork in the roads.
In order to leave a salary, you will have to get comfortable with uncertainty. There are ways, techniques, and methods to do this. Once you master them, you will learn to fear regret more than certainty.
“The problem is all inside your head
She said to me
The answer is easy if you
Take it logically
I’d like to help you in your struggle
To be free
There must be fifty ways
To leave your lover”Paul Simon.
2, Diets always start tomorrow.
You are looking for right time, the perfect moment, the point where all the stars are aligned. So you can quit and chase the dream. But, that day doesn’t come does it? That’s because you have a barrier to you starting. Because you know there is never a right time. It doesn’t exist. So this barrier provides you with an excuse. It makes it legitimate why you haven’t started. Some of the most successful companies have started in a recession. And some of the biggest flops have started in a boom. Will you be more talented in 6 months? More prepared? More ready? Or just 6 months less down the line? And yes, the diet always starts tomorrow. And not right now.
“Well, I must endure the presence of a few caterpillars if I wish to become acquainted with the butterflies.”
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince
3, Pain can help you.
Procrastination is simply you knowing what you want to do, but for some reason not doing it. There are two things at play here. The pain of change is greater than the pain of staying where you are. So to change you have to create a breakthrough moment. That moment when changing suddenly has less pain attached to it than staying right where you are.
To make change happen, we have learn how to use pain to drive us to action. To leave a salary, you will have to master pain and pleasure. Only then, will you leave a salary. Especially a good one.
“The secret of success is learning to use pain and pleasure instead of pain and pleasure using you. If you do that, you’re in control of your life. If you don’t, life controls you.
Tony Robbins.
4, Are you alive?
Are you too busy earning a living to live the life you truly wanted to? Are you getting through the week just to be alive on the weekend? Do you feel the weight of what you have to do versus the excitement what you want to do? Oh boy. Do you feel trapped? Do you feel you are on a treadmill that you can’t get off?
But here’s the deal. All those barriers are put there by you. So only you can remove them. Yes, you want to provide for your family. One of the key things you can provide is letting them see you happy. Let them see you alive. When they see you doing something you don’t love just to earn a cheque at the end of the month, what does that teach them?
[CHORUS:]
You Just slip out the back, Jack
Make a new plan, Stan
You don’t need to be coy, Roy
Just get yourself free
Hop on the bus, Gus
You don’t need to discuss much
Just drop off the key, Lee
And get yourself freePaul Simon
5, Everyone types faster when they have 10% battery left.
Everyone thinks they have time. There are lots of people who have deferred life plans who will never ever do them. There are lots of people who are going to start businesses that never ever start. There lots of people who are going to move jobs, change careers, more to another country that never end up doing any of them.
The clock is ticking. But decisions don’t take a decade to make. They take a second. And once that decision has been taken, you set a chain of events that will change your life. Your direction, your path will be altered just like that.
“We will either find a way, or make one.” Hanibal
6, You are already wealthy
If you have your health, a hunger to learn, and have energy to improve with each day, you already have extreme wealth. And, from that point, there is very little to stop you. So if you leave a great job, you are starting from an incredible position of strength.
We often think about what we are giving up, and pay little attention to what we have. If we adopt, and mentor a mind-set of abundance, and not one of scarcity, then we will begin to what we have already to its optimum.
“The most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or touched, they are felt with the heart.”
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince
7, Focus on the direction you are going in, not where you have left.
The hard thing about starting something new is not that it is scary. But often we are looking back from where we left in order to gain comfort. We left what we know, and entered a state of not knowing.
You have to focus on the new project. Take your experience with you but not your baggage. Look straight ahead. That is the direction you are going in. Back there that is where you have come from. Keep your eye on the road ahead. Focus on your new direction.
“If you want to be the noun, first do the verb.”
Austin Kleon
8, You will have to be better at being you.
To succeed you are going to have to be the best you have ever been at being you. You will have to prepare your body and mind for a period in your life that will ask more questions of you than any point in your life. You will have to become emotionally fit, you will have to be physically fit and yes, financially fit.
That means new regimes. New thinking, new eating regimes, new exercises regimes, new relationships with money. This is a turning point. And corny as it sounds, you are going to feel the most alive you have ever felt.
“Change happens when the pain of staying the same is greater than the pain of change”.
Tony Robbins.
9, Find a role model.
What you are doing has been done before. And guess what, you can learn what they did well, and what they got monumentally wrong. Read their books. Listen to their talks. Read their blogs. What can you learn from them.
They can provide inspiration, insights and methodologies on how to make this leap of faith. Learn how they prepared for it. What was their worst day? And what was the turning point where it all began to make sense.
“Find someone who has a life that you want and figure out how they got it. Read books, pick your role models wisely. Find out what they did and do it.”
Lana Del Rey
10, Tell yourself a different story.
We have to ask ourselves what is stopping us from making the change. And, if we are honest, it is because we keep telling ourselves we can’t. And over time, that becomes not just a story we tell us. But our beliefs.
‘The three most harmful addictions are heroin, carbohydrates and a monthly salary.’
Fred Wilson.
