"It is not that we have a short time to live, but that we waste a lot of it. Life is long enough, and a sufficiently generous amount has been given to us for the highest achievements if it were all well invested". ~ Seneca

Life seems brutally brief because so much of it is wasted. We waste our lives not being true to who we can be, by serving and feeding who we've been. We waste by not going after what we truly want, but also by giving into temptations that secure our failure, our future guilt and regret.

One of the few things I'm terrified of, is regret. I don't want to reach the end of my life knowing I could have lived better. It's not something that's confined to achievement.

I don't want to regret how I thought, how I treated people, how I stressed, what I pursued. I don't want to regret not being healthy enough, not having strong enough faith, not giving all I have to those things I deem important, not thinking clearly, not loving fully or pursuing daringly.

I don't want to have reached my end having lived a small life. I don't want to 'wish' I'd been better, because we each have the opportunity while we're here to be as great as we so choose.

As another year comes to an end, we have to finally reflect on how we've truly lived up to this point and we have to decide how we'll live for the remainder of our lives if we're to reach that end in peace and satisfaction, having run the race as best we can.

This article will cover that. We'll ask the necessary questions and conjure up the correct answers on how to best live so, as Seneca notes, we can live the best life possible with the ample time we've been given.

Step 1: Thinking Clearly

How can we live a great life if we're not clear about what great actually is?

Few think clearly. We don't really think about what's important, what we ought to pursue, how we ought to think. We think in a way that's heavily influenced by our culture, and for good or bad, we don't it. But, culture rarely has our personal best interests in mind.

The problem with this is, if you don't step back and question these things, we can be running the wrong race entirely. We can run a race that, even if we win in epic fashion, gives us none of the meaning or peace or power that we want. 

Clear thinking is knowing what matters and what doesn't. It's knowing what's in your control and what isn't. It's knowing what is good and what is bad, or what is helpful and what is destructive. 

We can root out that which doesn't serve our goals, dreams, aspirations, and allow the things that are helpful in our quest to live a great life to fill more of the space in our lives.

First, Choose Your Games

We have one existence, one crack at this life thing. It's pretty wild to think about. We have one at bat where we have to hit a home run. On top of that, we don't get any training or batting practice. We simply have to step up to the plate and succeed.

In this one life, we get to choose what games we play.

I like calling them games because a game is merely a problem that has a solution. For the most part, we choose what victory is, and then are tasked with solving how to win.

If, for example, we choose to play the wealth game, we can choose the number that's our victory. When we reach that number, we're done with that game and we can move onto other focuses.

The health game, however, is something we play forever. We ought to always be trying to be our healthiest. It's not something you get to, accomplish, and finish.

The health game is foundational, we need it to win the other games. 

So, what games are you playing now?

The wealth game? Health game? Wisdom game? Spiritual game?

Many are lifelong. Some are not. What's victory look like in these various games? And why are you playing each game? Are there games you're playing that you shouldn't be playing because they take away from other, more important games?

Are you trying to build a family? That's, in a sense, a game. The wealth game can destroy the family game, or it can help it. 

Seeing these various aspects as games helps you keep them in a box. When you're playing the wealth game, be in the wealth game, but don't let it consume every aspect of your life so that it destroys the other games. Keep it where it is. When you're working, work. When you're with family, be with them. When you're learning, learn, exploring, explore, when you're travelling, travel. 

Highlight the games you're playing right now. Question whether you should be playing all of these games. Do you need to be focused on the dating game, for example, or should you focus on the wealth and health games, first? Are you playing the wealth game but victory is measured by comparing what you have to what someone else has?

Take everything you do and pursue in life and question whether or not you ought to be pursuing it. Question if you're pursuing it for the right reasons. Question if you should remove certain games right now and focus on others.

Some bad games to play:

The comparison game - measuring success in relation to someone else's achievements.

The envy game - similar to the comparison game in that your success is only judged against someone else's success or failure.

Pleasure-seeking or dopamine seeking games - you seek pleasure, not meaning. Pleasure can be the dopamine hit you get from scrolling on social media, or puerno. It can be the dopamine hit you get from buying stuff or gossip. 

Smoke Cigars, Hike, Sit and Think and Meditate

We started this article off by talking about clear thinking. Most of us, myself included, spend a bulk of our time not thinking clearly. 

We're persuaded by culture to think a certain way and pursue certain things that really don't serve us. We buy things to impress people who don't really care about us or what we buy. 

We need time and space in our lives to question what we're doing and how we're thinking. We need to read, but we also need to simply think. You can find this in my favorite form of meditation, which is cigars. We can find this in the mountains on a hike, we can find this in meditation or prayer.

Create this time on a weekly basis to keep yourself in check, to question your own thoughts and pursuits, to really dig deep and see if you're thinking clearly, or if you're being persuaded by culture, by bad friends, by things that don't matter but that you think matter because you haven't questioned them.

Think Well

There are ways of thinking that stall my progress in building this business, in being healthy, in being good, in being who I can be, and there are ways of thinking that help me succeed.

It's important to identify the good and the bad ways of thinking, to control the bad, to root it out. The way we root out bad ways of thinking is to simply be aware of it. In awareness we know its real. If we're unaware of it, it's normal, it's a part of who we are, and especially in today's society, if something's a part of who we are it can't be bad - or so the line of thinking goes.

Some examples...

Envy is horrible. Trying to impress people is useless. Trying to keep up with the Jones' is a bad way of operating. Worrying about what others think is useless. 

Being open minded is great. As is being confident, knowing that if someone can do it, you can do it. Being courageous is important and powerful, while being cowardly is destructive. 

How we see the world is very important. If we think that what we want just isn't in our cards, it won't be. If we think the world is against us, it will be. 

See the world in a way that benefits you, that helps you get what you want, to live how you want to live. Question if how you think helps you live better.

Tip: If how you think leads you to be a victim, or if you see yourself as a victim in any way shape or form, you're thinking in a very destructive manner. You can never be a victim unless you choose to be a victim, and if you choose to be a victim, you'll never be able to help yourself succeed...

...And you better not be waiting around for someone else to come help you get what you want in life, that's just not how life works.

Detach

You have your games, your goals, the things you're trying to achieve, who you're trying to be, and so forth. True power comes from pursuing them without being attached to them. 

That's why we categorize them as games, and not the be all end all of life.

Detachment helps you think clearly.

If you're playing the wealth game as an investor, for example, and you need to succeed at this game because it means everything to you, you'll 'need' this trade to work. The market doesn't care about your needs. You can't care about your needs. You have to deal with reality, and reality can be harsh.

You have to make the right decisions, and desires can only cloud our judgement.

It's also just a lot more fun if we're detached, playing a game, rather than thinking our life depends on every single thing that happens when so much of it is out of our control.

We allow ourselves to simply do the right things and not do the wrong things. We allow ourselves to adopt the right habits because they're right, and deal with chaos and stress in a calm manner.

We can detach from how we want things to go and deal with what life throws at us because this is all we can deal with. 

When you're pursuing your goals, for example, have a deadline or timeline, but don't be attached to it. Simply do the right things forever, and allow the results to come as they come. 

Use timelines only to add urgency, but don't be so attached to them that they add nerves, fear, and sorrow when they don't come as you'd like them to come.

Do the right things. Don't do the wrong things. But detach yourself from outcomes completely.

Stop Being Busy

Life's not just wasted in laziness, but in busyness. 

Naval Ravikant has a few great lines on this issue:

“If you’re too busy doing stuff, you won’t have time to think clearly.”

“Better bored than busy.”

“A busy mind will destroy your ability to create anything great.”

There's a dichotomy here. In trying to live our best life, we try to do everything we can to get there. However, we have to stop, pause, and think if what we're doing truly is the right stuff.

This is a constant and evolving process that never ends. It's why I already highlighted cigars, hiking, and meditation or prayer. Get busy living, but don't get so busy that you deviate from how you ought to be living.

Pause and reflect. Do stuff, see if it works, and iterate. 

Always be iterating. 

Dare Greatly

Why not?

Whatever you choose to do, be, or pursue, go big. It's just more fun.

We get this one opportunity at life. What the living fuck is the point of it if it isn't challenging, exciting, dangerous, and thrilling? 

Excitement comes from doing something we're not quite sure we can do. I don't know what this thing is for you, you may not yet know, but keep questioning if you're asking enough of yourself.

To be brutally honest, I'm not. Hence, this section of the article.

I can do better, go bigger, work harder, think better, enjoy the process a heck of a lot more. Building a business like this, living life, navigating all of these challenges, starting a marriage, a family, trying to get in the best shape of my life, seeking out little adventures along the way, how is this not exciting?

Again, it comes back to questioning. 

Don't question whether you can or can't do something. Question if you're truly asking enough of yourself.

Get in better shape. Build a better, bigger business. Help more people, or help fewer people in a greater way. Dare greatly.

6 Months (Urgency)

Create urgency where it's not readily apparent, because habits become more important when confined to shorter timelines. If your life were a day you wouldn't waste a minute of it.

All you can do is all you can do. But are we really doing all we can do? 

Daring greatly isn't just about the 'what', but also about the 'when'. Move the timeline up. We can always do more, sooner. We can always aim higher, quicker, while at the same time, oddly enough, being detached from this timeline and the outcome.

Take what you want to achieve this year, and confine it to 6 months. Add a bit more urgency. Make the habits just a little more important.

Also, urgency can be created when you fundamentally understand that today is all that matters. All you can do is win a day, so you may as well win a day. We'll cover this next, but success is the act of stacking tasks.

Even building a massive company is a series of tasks that are stacked on top of one another. Some of those tasks are decisions, others are actual work accomplished. Either way, all you can do is stack those tasks and by pushing them into the future you also push your achievement into the future.

At some point, we stack so much avoidance that our would-be accomplishment is pushed beyond our lifetime.

Add urgency. Do whatever you can to add urgency so where what you do right now actually matters to you.

You Are Your Habits, So, What Are Your Habits?

Achievement is simply doing the right things for a long enough period. That's it.

So, what are the right things?

Highlight the games you're playing, then focus on one or two games. Some games are taken care of by clear-thinking alone, and depend on these other areas of life to succeed.

As men, work is important. It's how we take care of our families, it's in part how we help them flourish, and it's also a big aspect of why we're here - we're, in part, here to build something or to become great at something.

Side note: the health game, becoming healthier, stronger, and so forth, isn't even a thought in my mind. The habits, at this point, are so ingrained and clear that I don't have to think about them. Lift 4 days a week. Cardio 6 days a week. I know what I eat. If I don't do these workouts it's a clear failure. 

Not much thought has to go into the health game, it's all discipline.

When defining the habits of the work game or the wealth game, you do have to think about the best way to operate, and it'll always change.

For me, I have to spend a lot of time learning and a lot of time producing. But the learning is real, valuable work time. It has to be a habit. 

Figure out what habits you need to win in a couple of the more important games in life to you, wherever you want to succeed. Also, figure out habits that don't serve you.

Social media, for example. It's off my phone. I answer comments on social media on my computer, but it takes away from my productivity if it's on my phone.

Be clear about the good habits, and the bad habits. Write both down. You can even add checkmarks daily for both columns. Ideally, have zero checkmarks in the bad columns and daily checkmarks in the good columns.

The Games. The Goals. The Plans. The Execution.

Execution is everything. It's great to have lofty goals and dreams, it's even great to think clearly, and in thinking clearly you're likely to take correct action. But you still have to do the right things and not do the wrong things.

The easiest example is good vs bad. We may know a habit is bad, but knowledge is useless unless we act on it.

I suppose the goal of this entire article is to provide clarity - to you and me.

It's an exercise, not a how to.

We have to think clearly:

Thinking clearly enables us to make sure we're going after the right things. It then ensures we're going after the right things in the most efficient and effective way.

We need awareness:

Being aware of what's good and what's bad, even in modes of thinking, allows us to have black and white decisions, which are easy to make.

Execution:

Having a black and white decision in front of us, a clear good vs bad scenario is so simple and easy to make. Then you just have to have the courage, the balls, to make the right decision - which is usually the opposite of pleasure-seeking.

Detachment:

We have our games, our goals, the outcomes we want, the timelines to have urgency, the awareness of what's good and bad, and the courage to execute. Awesome. Now we just need detachment from the outcomes, detachment from everything so we can circle back and think clearly about it all and make the best decisions possible.

This is how we live our best life and have the best year of our lives.