at a time, one week at a time, one month at a time.
It happens so gradually they are unaware
of how their lives are slipping away
until it's too late."
~Mary Kay Ash
The Decision ...to Live Life Your Way 24/7
By Kevin Hogan, Psy. D.
Living Life Your Way...it's the subtitle to my newly released book.
Oh COME ON!
Who can really live life "your way" 24/7!?
Stuff happens every day that makes every single action a happy action...not possible.
BUT wait....that's not what we want is it?
Imagine what life would be like if it was lived YOUR WAY....
I'm one of those "exception/polarity responder" types that reactively sees the exception automatically in anything people say. Mostly, it's my skeptical nature that has been cultivated by life for many, many years.
This trait irritates me in others; yet I respect the trait for what it does...it causes people to think carefully.
Living Life Your Way...REALLY?
Yet, that really is what it's all about, isn't it?
If you don't...then you are a slave...and I've never been big on slavery...the restriction by others on you that takes away your freedom to choose...if you so choose to choose...
Living Life Your Way....IS success.
Write that down. Highlight it. Bold it. Stick it on a post-it note next to your computer.
IF you identify with "living life your way", then indeed you are a success. If you don't, then you aren't, and I would argue that meaning in life often comes from living life your way.
Living Life Your Way doesn't happen in an instant. But the decision to do so DOES.
Today...it is my hope that you are a work in progress.
There were a lot of times in life where I felt I was a work in Regress. I never wanted to fail, or to live life in a way such that there would be no story worth telling later in life...life just sort of SLID into regression...and for a good while...but did it...SLIDE?
Probably not. When you put the car in neutral and you have been driving up the hill...you let go of the break and you go down backward...you regress. It's a choice. You SLID...ed. When you put the car in neutral without it being in an appropriate place to put it in neutral, you failed.
I've never experienced more people talking with me about this "place in life" as I have the last year or two, and it's one of the reasons I wrote the book, The 168 Hour Week: Living Life Your Way 24/7. Obviously, the vast majority of people aren't anywhere near where they want to be in life. You certainly may be, but you probably aren't, and that really is OK...for as long as it is OK. The car is in neutral and sliding.
It might be time to hit the brakes before it accelerates going backward, because THAT is what happens in real life.
The very good news is that for the most part, you and your life are in your own hands.
Ultimately, with a few exceptions along the way, you decide where you want to be and when you want to be there. The decisions you make are your decisions.
Now, sometimes sh*t happens that you aren't responsible for, and it gets in your way and you feel like it locks you into a prison. You become the mouse in the maze. Going left, then right, then back around until you end up in worse shape than where you began.
Stopping that movie...full stop requires strength of character.
And this, of course, is where character is built...but most people don't enjoy building character!
Today, you may feel trapped. You ended up that way because of the stuff that happened and because of the decisions you made to get trapped.
And here is a crucial while irritating fact.
In most cases, the sh*t that happens in life is only as powerful as the preparation that was made for the stuff likely to happen.
This is where people lack the ability to analyze their road to "now" and, without accurate analysis, they will believe that only the decisions they make from today forward will impact their future.
Not true. (Read it again.)
The decisions you've made for years bring you to today, and many of them you are stuck with for life. Other decisions will take time to get over.
A good friend is next to broke and bought a brand new car in the Cash for Clunker thing. I nearly fell over. 30 K on loan. In five years, it will be worth 15 K and she will literally work to pay for that non-Clunker...to get back and forth to work!
The lack of logic in faulty decision-making has always been disconcerting to me.
It's always pretty easy to tell where a person is financially. If they are living to pay for transportation.... then their efforts at saving $200 a month for retirement is little more than a joke.
If someone is spending $600 per month for transportation, they should at least be spending 50% more than that on their business or investments (or both). And don't confuse business with work. Business is your family's guarantee of financial security. Work, on the other hand, is somewhere someone goes for 1/2 of their waking hours. Nothing wrong with "a job."
But "jobs" that don't have renewable resources have to make you nervous.
What's a job with a "renewable resource"? ...
When you sell life or casualty insurance, for example, you have a renewal with most policies each year; and the income that you earn from previous work goes into the future. It's a very smart professional choice to be in the insurance biz.
That renewing resource is your safety net.
Then, you have the money that you put into investments for when you can't "work," and you have security and financial freedom. My definition of "success" (for most people) is living life your way, and that requires financial freedom. Financial freedom is simply a math problem that based upon what you have today; you can predictably live on that for the rest of your life, if you chose to.
Now, let's be real.
You may feel you're in a helpless situation. You feel that way because of the decisions you made. You will continue to feel that way if you decide to stay where you are.
Nothing will "happen" that will change anything (except for the worse). You've got to make a number of secondary decisions if you are going to move forward and not let your life situations decay.
The good news is you can make the decision to get out of this situation and experience "new life."
You'll experience feelings that will at first be very uncomfortable, often cause fear... and eventually empower you. Eventually those feelings will inspire you.... feelings that will enable you to further your journey of success.
So if it all comes down to decisions...what the heck is standing in the way (besides all the decisions of the past that continue to impact us)?
There are a number of obstacles...that can lead to disastrous consequences...most of which can be easily overcome. Here they are....
Familiarity, comfort, habit, resistance and fear. Those five horsemen of the apocalypse come to mind.
Comfort
Comfort is an enemy of success in relationships, career...everything.
To succeed, you depart from your comfort zone out of Gate F 11 in the Blue Concourse. If you don't get on the plane and do some really different things...you decay. You have entropy. You have failure.
Think about it. While you are in your comfort zone, you sit back and find comfort in being mentally lazy or living that which is familiar.
Then, people expect things to just happen. People get comfortable and often think they are supposed to lay back in the recliner and the world will wait on them.
This mentality will kill a successful spirit...and the security of those that depend on the guy in the recliner.
The comfort mindset is the enemy of achievement and security.
In caveman terms....the successful lifestyle calls for you to go out, kill something and drag it home.
If you want it, go get it.
No animal ever came up to the Neanderthal's villa and said, "Hey bud, time to kill me so you have food for next week. Get off your butt and grab your spear...geesh."
Success doesn't come knocking at your door. It just does not happen. Not when you are awake, at least.
Habit
Habit can be an enemy of success OR it can be the backbone for achieving success. Let's talk about the bad guy first. You can probably answer this question before you even finish hearing it.
Question: What are some habits that crush any chance of achieving success?
Potential Answers:
One of the most difficult things to do is to stop a bad habit. And then of course...another extremely difficult thing to do is to start a good habit. Now combine those and try to stop a bad habit and start a good habit at the same time.
Two decisions and effort will be required.
You know who I want to hire?
I want to hire everyone on that little raft that left Cuba Tuesday, arrived on some beach in Florida, and some official arrested the family on the raft.
I want to hire them and give them a job.
Why???
If they can get on a 8' x 8' raft, face sharks, no food for a week, get lost, maybe live through the experience all for the decision to have a better life and the freedom to do so, send 'em on up here.
That's a lot of decisions and a lot of effort.
That's why immigrants who come to America are so dang successful. Man, you live in Vietnam long enough and then find your way to America, you have it made in the shade. All success requires in America is decisions and effort. Nothing compares to the journeys required to actually GET HERE.
Of course, my kids live in America, so they have Playstations, big TV's and are basically at a big disadvantage for achievement and success compared to immigrants who make life or death decisions and then actually DO them....damn immigrants....
Here's a good way to overcome the indecision insanity.
Get angry enough at your current circumstance that you D-E-C-I-D-E to make a change. The most effective tool for change is a concrete, rock solid, put my life on the line and kick my butt.... decision.
There is a common attribute that almost all successful people have.
That attribute is habit. But not just any habit. The habits of success will bring success in your life.
Decide to get on the raft.
Get on the raft.
Get into the water (with a map).
Be willing to get lost if that is the risk you face.
Be willing to get sent back to start to begin again if someone doesn't like you in his or her cushy territory.
RESPECT OTHERS WHO GET ON A RAFT, TOO.
Resistance
Resistance can be a good thing. But it's not a good thing when you are trying to achieve something. Resistance can be seen through behaviors such as procrastination and just negative thinking in general. Resistance can cripple any potential successes or be a blockade to keep successful living from flourishing.
How do you know if you're resisting successful living?
Not rocket science....
Are you in the same place now you were in 3 months ago? 6 months ago? 1 year ago?
You are successfully achieving...resisting successful living.
Why would anyone want to resist successful living?
People are too comfortable to change. Evolution hasn't wired you to think past getting your genes passed on to the next generation and keep them alive until they are old enough to fly on their own.
There's always a very reasonable question of the unknown element of success. On a non-conscious level there is an absolute terror of success. Sometimes that fear is paired with another...the fear of failure.
Which brings us to the next horseman...Fear.
Fear can be the most crippling, unrelenting, paralyzing, scary emotion you will ever experience, if you let it. Fear plays a part in our every day lives and it can keep you from failing, flailing, falling or from a fling.
And ... it will keep you from taking risks. It will push you back toward that which is familiar.
Consequently, it will keep you from successful living.
So how do you overcome and vanish fear?
You have to get angry and walk in the fire of fear.
Are you afraid of heights?
Climb a mountain.
Are you afraid of meeting someone who could become a new boyfriend or girlfriend?
Go strike up a conversation with all the interesting people every chance you get.
Do you fear public speaking?
Sign up for my Professional Speaking course this Spring.
You can decide to be a person of fear or you can decide NOT to be.
KEYPOINT: Fear can be your end, or it can be your beginning.
If you decide fear is going to rule your decisions about how to succeed or not, then you won't, so hop in the recliner and watch old Starsky and Hutch reruns. But if you decide that fear will be your motivator to overcome everything that may hold you back, then you will be on top in a short amount of time.
Here's a secret: It's not as far to the top as people think it is.... not anymore!
Fear = Limitations
No Fear = Endless Opportunity
How do you create an incredibly successful life?
Creating an Incredibly Successful Life
Do you look around observing how certain others seem to be living that life of success that you are after?
They decided to get on a raft because their current life was a road to desolation.
They built the raft.
They got on the raft.
They got a map.
They set sail.
They arrived to a whole new set of problems.
They got sent back, or they found their dream.
It was like that in 1620 when a bunch of white dudes came over from England and ran into some of my other ancestors here in North America.
Of course, I was lucky. Most of my relatives weren't butchered by one side or the other.
It was like that in 2009...when a bunch Mexican and Cubans came from...Mexico and Cuba and ran into future ancestors here in North America.
Same story.
Different year.
Same goals.
Same resistance by the Native Americans (Can't blame 'em)
Same resistance by those searching for freedom. (Can't blame 'em)
Look, the vast majority of people that live in Cuba or Mexico are too familiar with their environment to take a chance by escaping to a better life. (It's the identical driving force of success.)
I've done business with a bunch of people who came from Asia to America. To me they are like a gift of role models. They fight overwhelming odds in every aspect in life, then come here and outperform the home team on their own turf.
The answer to success is not in wishing for success. The answer to successful living dwells within the one who is doing the reaching.
Look, what sets you apart from everyone else?
Go ahead. List some areas in your life that are absolutely, without a doubt, totally different than anyone you know?
What are some habits, skills, and talents that you have that most people aren't amazing at?
List them out. The more - the better.
Now, how many do you have? Five? Ten? Twenty?
You've now given birth to the image of you that you can and will send to the rest of the world as you do your projects and grow your small-probably-happily-from-home "business."
Oh COME ON!
Who can really live life "your way" 24/7!?
Stuff happens every day that makes every single action a happy action...not possible.
BUT wait....that's not what we want is it?
Imagine what life would be like if it was lived YOUR WAY....
I'm one of those "exception/polarity responder" types that reactively sees the exception automatically in anything people say. Mostly, it's my skeptical nature that has been cultivated by life for many, many years.
This trait irritates me in others; yet I respect the trait for what it does...it causes people to think carefully.
Living Life Your Way...REALLY?
Yet, that really is what it's all about, isn't it?
If you don't...then you are a slave...and I've never been big on slavery...the restriction by others on you that takes away your freedom to choose...if you so choose to choose...
Living Life Your Way....IS success.
Write that down. Highlight it. Bold it. Stick it on a post-it note next to your computer.
IF you identify with "living life your way", then indeed you are a success. If you don't, then you aren't, and I would argue that meaning in life often comes from living life your way.
Living Life Your Way doesn't happen in an instant. But the decision to do so DOES.
Today...it is my hope that you are a work in progress.
There were a lot of times in life where I felt I was a work in Regress. I never wanted to fail, or to live life in a way such that there would be no story worth telling later in life...life just sort of SLID into regression...and for a good while...but did it...SLIDE?
Probably not. When you put the car in neutral and you have been driving up the hill...you let go of the break and you go down backward...you regress. It's a choice. You SLID...ed. When you put the car in neutral without it being in an appropriate place to put it in neutral, you failed.
I've never experienced more people talking with me about this "place in life" as I have the last year or two, and it's one of the reasons I wrote the book, The 168 Hour Week: Living Life Your Way 24/7. Obviously, the vast majority of people aren't anywhere near where they want to be in life. You certainly may be, but you probably aren't, and that really is OK...for as long as it is OK. The car is in neutral and sliding.
It might be time to hit the brakes before it accelerates going backward, because THAT is what happens in real life.
The very good news is that for the most part, you and your life are in your own hands.
Ultimately, with a few exceptions along the way, you decide where you want to be and when you want to be there. The decisions you make are your decisions.
Now, sometimes sh*t happens that you aren't responsible for, and it gets in your way and you feel like it locks you into a prison. You become the mouse in the maze. Going left, then right, then back around until you end up in worse shape than where you began.
Stopping that movie...full stop requires strength of character.
And this, of course, is where character is built...but most people don't enjoy building character!
Today, you may feel trapped. You ended up that way because of the stuff that happened and because of the decisions you made to get trapped.
And here is a crucial while irritating fact.
In most cases, the sh*t that happens in life is only as powerful as the preparation that was made for the stuff likely to happen.
This is where people lack the ability to analyze their road to "now" and, without accurate analysis, they will believe that only the decisions they make from today forward will impact their future.
Not true. (Read it again.)
The decisions you've made for years bring you to today, and many of them you are stuck with for life. Other decisions will take time to get over.
A good friend is next to broke and bought a brand new car in the Cash for Clunker thing. I nearly fell over. 30 K on loan. In five years, it will be worth 15 K and she will literally work to pay for that non-Clunker...to get back and forth to work!
The lack of logic in faulty decision-making has always been disconcerting to me.
It's always pretty easy to tell where a person is financially. If they are living to pay for transportation.... then their efforts at saving $200 a month for retirement is little more than a joke.
If someone is spending $600 per month for transportation, they should at least be spending 50% more than that on their business or investments (or both). And don't confuse business with work. Business is your family's guarantee of financial security. Work, on the other hand, is somewhere someone goes for 1/2 of their waking hours. Nothing wrong with "a job."
But "jobs" that don't have renewable resources have to make you nervous.
What's a job with a "renewable resource"? ...
When you sell life or casualty insurance, for example, you have a renewal with most policies each year; and the income that you earn from previous work goes into the future. It's a very smart professional choice to be in the insurance biz.
That renewing resource is your safety net.
Then, you have the money that you put into investments for when you can't "work," and you have security and financial freedom. My definition of "success" (for most people) is living life your way, and that requires financial freedom. Financial freedom is simply a math problem that based upon what you have today; you can predictably live on that for the rest of your life, if you chose to.
Now, let's be real.
You may feel you're in a helpless situation. You feel that way because of the decisions you made. You will continue to feel that way if you decide to stay where you are.
Nothing will "happen" that will change anything (except for the worse). You've got to make a number of secondary decisions if you are going to move forward and not let your life situations decay.
The good news is you can make the decision to get out of this situation and experience "new life."
You'll experience feelings that will at first be very uncomfortable, often cause fear... and eventually empower you. Eventually those feelings will inspire you.... feelings that will enable you to further your journey of success.
So if it all comes down to decisions...what the heck is standing in the way (besides all the decisions of the past that continue to impact us)?
There are a number of obstacles...that can lead to disastrous consequences...most of which can be easily overcome. Here they are....
Familiarity, comfort, habit, resistance and fear. Those five horsemen of the apocalypse come to mind.
Comfort
Comfort is an enemy of success in relationships, career...everything.
To succeed, you depart from your comfort zone out of Gate F 11 in the Blue Concourse. If you don't get on the plane and do some really different things...you decay. You have entropy. You have failure.
Think about it. While you are in your comfort zone, you sit back and find comfort in being mentally lazy or living that which is familiar.
Then, people expect things to just happen. People get comfortable and often think they are supposed to lay back in the recliner and the world will wait on them.
This mentality will kill a successful spirit...and the security of those that depend on the guy in the recliner.
The comfort mindset is the enemy of achievement and security.
In caveman terms....the successful lifestyle calls for you to go out, kill something and drag it home.
If you want it, go get it.
No animal ever came up to the Neanderthal's villa and said, "Hey bud, time to kill me so you have food for next week. Get off your butt and grab your spear...geesh."
Success doesn't come knocking at your door. It just does not happen. Not when you are awake, at least.
Habit
Habit can be an enemy of success OR it can be the backbone for achieving success. Let's talk about the bad guy first. You can probably answer this question before you even finish hearing it.
Question: What are some habits that crush any chance of achieving success?
Potential Answers:
- Laziness
- Complacency
- Procrastination
- Lack of Self-Control
One of the most difficult things to do is to stop a bad habit. And then of course...another extremely difficult thing to do is to start a good habit. Now combine those and try to stop a bad habit and start a good habit at the same time.
Two decisions and effort will be required.
You know who I want to hire?
I want to hire everyone on that little raft that left Cuba Tuesday, arrived on some beach in Florida, and some official arrested the family on the raft.
I want to hire them and give them a job.
Why???
If they can get on a 8' x 8' raft, face sharks, no food for a week, get lost, maybe live through the experience all for the decision to have a better life and the freedom to do so, send 'em on up here.
That's a lot of decisions and a lot of effort.
That's why immigrants who come to America are so dang successful. Man, you live in Vietnam long enough and then find your way to America, you have it made in the shade. All success requires in America is decisions and effort. Nothing compares to the journeys required to actually GET HERE.
Of course, my kids live in America, so they have Playstations, big TV's and are basically at a big disadvantage for achievement and success compared to immigrants who make life or death decisions and then actually DO them....damn immigrants....
Here's a good way to overcome the indecision insanity.
Get angry enough at your current circumstance that you D-E-C-I-D-E to make a change. The most effective tool for change is a concrete, rock solid, put my life on the line and kick my butt.... decision.
There is a common attribute that almost all successful people have.
That attribute is habit. But not just any habit. The habits of success will bring success in your life.
Decide to get on the raft.
Get on the raft.
Get into the water (with a map).
Be willing to get lost if that is the risk you face.
Be willing to get sent back to start to begin again if someone doesn't like you in his or her cushy territory.
RESPECT OTHERS WHO GET ON A RAFT, TOO.
Resistance
Resistance can be a good thing. But it's not a good thing when you are trying to achieve something. Resistance can be seen through behaviors such as procrastination and just negative thinking in general. Resistance can cripple any potential successes or be a blockade to keep successful living from flourishing.
How do you know if you're resisting successful living?
Not rocket science....
Are you in the same place now you were in 3 months ago? 6 months ago? 1 year ago?
You are successfully achieving...resisting successful living.
Why would anyone want to resist successful living?
People are too comfortable to change. Evolution hasn't wired you to think past getting your genes passed on to the next generation and keep them alive until they are old enough to fly on their own.
There's always a very reasonable question of the unknown element of success. On a non-conscious level there is an absolute terror of success. Sometimes that fear is paired with another...the fear of failure.
Which brings us to the next horseman...Fear.
Fear can be the most crippling, unrelenting, paralyzing, scary emotion you will ever experience, if you let it. Fear plays a part in our every day lives and it can keep you from failing, flailing, falling or from a fling.
And ... it will keep you from taking risks. It will push you back toward that which is familiar.
Consequently, it will keep you from successful living.
So how do you overcome and vanish fear?
You have to get angry and walk in the fire of fear.
Are you afraid of heights?
Climb a mountain.
Are you afraid of meeting someone who could become a new boyfriend or girlfriend?
Go strike up a conversation with all the interesting people every chance you get.
Do you fear public speaking?
Sign up for my Professional Speaking course this Spring.
You can decide to be a person of fear or you can decide NOT to be.
KEYPOINT: Fear can be your end, or it can be your beginning.
If you decide fear is going to rule your decisions about how to succeed or not, then you won't, so hop in the recliner and watch old Starsky and Hutch reruns. But if you decide that fear will be your motivator to overcome everything that may hold you back, then you will be on top in a short amount of time.
Here's a secret: It's not as far to the top as people think it is.... not anymore!
Fear = Limitations
No Fear = Endless Opportunity
How do you create an incredibly successful life?
Creating an Incredibly Successful Life
Do you look around observing how certain others seem to be living that life of success that you are after?
They decided to get on a raft because their current life was a road to desolation.
They built the raft.
They got on the raft.
They got a map.
They set sail.
They arrived to a whole new set of problems.
They got sent back, or they found their dream.
It was like that in 1620 when a bunch of white dudes came over from England and ran into some of my other ancestors here in North America.
Of course, I was lucky. Most of my relatives weren't butchered by one side or the other.
It was like that in 2009...when a bunch Mexican and Cubans came from...Mexico and Cuba and ran into future ancestors here in North America.
Same story.
Different year.
Same goals.
Same resistance by the Native Americans (Can't blame 'em)
Same resistance by those searching for freedom. (Can't blame 'em)
Look, the vast majority of people that live in Cuba or Mexico are too familiar with their environment to take a chance by escaping to a better life. (It's the identical driving force of success.)
I've done business with a bunch of people who came from Asia to America. To me they are like a gift of role models. They fight overwhelming odds in every aspect in life, then come here and outperform the home team on their own turf.
The answer to success is not in wishing for success. The answer to successful living dwells within the one who is doing the reaching.
Look, what sets you apart from everyone else?
Go ahead. List some areas in your life that are absolutely, without a doubt, totally different than anyone you know?
What are some habits, skills, and talents that you have that most people aren't amazing at?
List them out. The more - the better.
Now, how many do you have? Five? Ten? Twenty?
You've now given birth to the image of you that you can and will send to the rest of the world as you do your projects and grow your small-probably-happily-from-home "business."
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