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Rule #34. If you want your life to change, you’ve got to change your life.
Are you exactly where you want to be in life, doing exactly what you want to be doing? If so, you can disregard this rule. You’ve already got it figured out.
If not, then you’re like the rest of us, working on getting your life the way you want it to be. It’s not easy, but if you really want your life to change you can make it happen, you just have to change your life.
You have to do things differently, not the same way you’ve always done them. This means breaking out of your comfort zone. Plenty of people say that they want to pursue a goal, chase a dream, or go on an adventure, but they keep doing the same things they always have. If that behavior didn’t cut a path to the goal before, what makes you think that it suddenly will now?
It won’t.
No, to chase a goal, you have to decide to chase it, and then you actually have to chase it. To change your life, you have to change your behavior. To change your behavior, you have to change your mindset; you can’t expect to achieve your goals using the same thinking that’s kept them out of reach thus far. If you want to change your life, your have to do things differently. You have to break out of your comfort zone. You have to be willing to face the fear.
Or you can stay the same. And that’s fine. It’s perfectly okay to stay the same.
But don’t you want more than just okay? Don’t you want more than fine?
You can have more than that. You deserve more than that. You can shape your life into what you want it to be, but it requires serious effort. It isn’t easy, but most things worth doing aren’t. So start today, chase your dream, work towards your goal. Change your life, and your life will change.
“Rules for Intrepid Living” is a weekly post giving guidelines for how we can all live a bit more of an intrepid life.
Wade, Have you watched Ken Burns’ Roosevelts documentary? Apparently Teddy was terribly insecure and asthmatic as a child. He wouldn’t even leave the house without his little brother. His father – who loved him very much – suggested he “make” his body. Teddy began working out, and then developed his own mantra: Get Action. Every time he faced depression – a lifelong demon – he would get action by setting off on a physically challenging and exhilarating adventure. Indeed, he ended up “making” his body and his psyche into one of the most memorable and consequential presidents ever. Without him, we wouldn’t have the national park system we treasure today. So, yup: you’ve got to change your own life to experience the life you want. 🙂
I haven’t seen that, but I’ll have to check it out. I dig number 26 though; I’ve done some reading on him, and did know that he was a pretty sickly kid, and learned more about his role in creating the National Park System when we went to see National Parks Adventure on Valentines Day (excellent date movie)! I think Get Action is a pretty good takeaway from his life; I may have to incorporate that into my own!