Have you ever considered your own personal life goal? A single life goal? I have. Ever since I wrote my high school Senior Thesis paper on, “What is Success?”, I’ve thought about it.
So far as I know, I’m only going to pass through this life once. Now, hopefully, I’ll make it to dance with the man upstairs, but I’m not going to take for granted my time here on Earth. I only know this to be true: I was born. I will die. And the little speck of space in between is called life. I’m going to make the most of it. It’s one of the reasons I love hopping out of bed before the rooster can even crow – I’m committed to “out-live” everyone. I’ll sleep when I’m dead.
But how do I make the most of my life?
I have a clear vision of what it means to be “me” and lead a successful life. Since I have some guidelines to assess my work, I’m able to live my life well.
My single life goal: Have more fun than anyone else!
To me, having more fun than anyone else is a direct reflection of living my life in a positive and inspiring way. As a business associate once said, “You can make yourself look great by either building people up or tearing people down.” I prefer to lift people up and build lasting connections. When I get to the end of the road and look back, I want to be assessed on these points:
- Gain Perspective: It’s my favorite word in the English language. I truly believe that the wider and deeper perspective you cultivate (and you do cultivate it by being aware and placing yourself in situations that stretch your comfort zone) – the better your quality of life.
- Laugh a ton…and mostly at myself: Life is really, really funny. Twist your head and find the humor and irony in everything around you. Most of all, be willing to laugh harder at yourself than with the people around you. And, with a healthy dose of perspective, you will be able to see just how funny the blips in life are for people.
- Give first…without expecting to receive: I love giving back to the community (I strongly believe we should all give back as part of the social compact of society). Whether it is in friendships, community service, business endeavors, we should all strive to honestly give without the expectation of receiving. In my Leadership Studies classes, Robert Greenleaf called it “Servant Leadership” and it was excellently highlighted by Leo in Journey to the East by Hermann Hesse. It’s a self-actualization we should all strive to achieve.
- “The One Car Theory of Life”: I may be an entrepreneur at heart, but I believe that life is in abundance – not scarce. As a result, I believe that everyone can get a piece of the action – not just large winners and large losers. To me, it’s like a merging intersection. If all people simply allowed “one car in”, then traffic would flow smoothly and easily – everyone wins. Instead, we have one car that gives a little and lots of cars that give nothing. It ends up as gridlock because we’re all competing for a small piece of the pie instead of cooperating and focusing on the bigger picture.
- Most people want friends, but don’t want to be a friend. Always be a friend.: As humans, we’re always letting one another down. Distractions like “better offers” come along and distort our commitment to simply “show up” and be there exactly when we said we would be there – even when it is “inconvenient”. The baseline of a friendship is showing up. Adding value to the relationship makes it blossom. But, the start of any great friendship is with your own commitment to always be a friend.
- Be Amazed by the World Around me and Question Everything with the goal of being a Life-long learner: Intellectual curiosity is critically important to me (yeah, it’s that perspective thing). Why do we lose that “Wow-ness” of life that we had as kids? You know…the meeting of Disney characters for the first time with wide-eyed wonderment. While things that become familiar can drive that loss of amazement, I sincerely believe if we keep wide-eyes open, question everything and have the goal of learning from every person, every interaction and every situation that we can contribute to the world in more vibrant ways.
- Engineer my Life Experience: So many people just blow through life without having these introspective thoughts of, “What is a quality life?” and “What is my life goal?” It’s like a leaf being blown about by environmental conditions. You lose control of the experience and so life impacts you instead of you impacting life. I guess it’s really part of that internal locus of control. I matter. You matter. And, I sincerely believe that by having a life mission and goal that I can engineer my life experience to be more enjoyable…and to have more fun than anyone else.
If I’ve lived these beliefs, I’m quite certain that everything else will gently fall into place.
What is your life goal? Have you ever thought about it – or are you gently blowing in the wind like a leaf with no clear path to lead an amazing life?
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