ТОП просматриваемых книг сайта:
The Academic Hustle. Matthew Pigatt
Читать онлайн.Название The Academic Hustle
Год выпуска 0
isbn 9781633539341
Автор произведения Matthew Pigatt
Жанр Учебная литература
Издательство Ingram
Figure Out WHAT You Want in Life
Figuring out what you want is a simple process. Oftentimes, many people have trouble with this because they have never taken the time to ask themselves these two questions:
1.What do I want out of life?
2.What will make me happy?
Continuously ask yourself these questions until you narrow down what resonates with you. Only you can identify what the right answer is. It will feel right. You may experience goose bumps, a tingling or indescribable energy, or just a feeling of “rightness.” I promise you, there is nothing quite like it. When you find the answer, it will put a smile on your face, determination in your gut, and a desire in your heart. Suddenly, you will see the so-called friends you’re killing yourself to be around as a waste of your time and energy.
Once you find that answer, try to put it in one sentence without any commas. It will take time to do so, time well-spent. At sixteen, my WHAT was the following:
To put a smile on my mother’s face and become a role model for my lil brother.
Initially, I did not know how I was going to do this. It was motivating, but I had no concrete goal or benchmark to reach for. I needed something to measure how well I was moving toward my goal on a day-to-day basis. Once I was exposed to college, I realized how I was going to do it: by being a fully funded, well-connected, college graduate. So, my WHAT statement became:
I want to go to college, so I can put a smile on my mother’s face and become a role model for my lil brother.
The more specific you are, the better. When I say specific, I mean a realistic goal that you can achieve. It will be even better if it is a career goal. However, this WHAT statement may change over time. Once I got to college, it was:
I will find the money to pay for school within two years or end up back home and in jail like my older brother.
Once I found the money to pay for school, I became a little cocky with my goals:
I will become a professor and prove that I know what I am talking about.
Write your statement. Let me repeat that: WRITE it down.
Most people will read those statements and still not write theirs down. They can’t make the mental leap required to take their success seriously yet. That’s fine; somebody must make up the crowd that follows your lead. Do not be like most people and end up lost in a horde of mediocrity. Writing out your goal helps you clarify what you want. In addition, it is the first impression of your goal in the world. Writing out your goals takes them from fantasies in your head to real-world expressions. It is the declaration to the world and the universe that you are not to be taken as a joke.
Once you do this, you will not be wondering what you are doing in life anymore. Those days of needing constant entertainment to escape the boredom of living without direction and goals are done. You will have direction that empowers you. The more specific you can be about what you want, the more clearly you can define your path and determine your direction.
Exercise F1.1 – Identify WHAT You Want Out of Life
Get a notebook, a few sheets of paper, or open a new text document on your computer or your phone. Reserve 15 – 30 minutes of free time, free from any distractions. Write at the top of the document two questions:
1.What do I want out of life?
2.What will make me happy?
Write down everything that comes to mind without any filter. Just keep writing. After you cannot write anymore (push yourself to think and write for at least 10 minutes), read everything. Listen to your intuition and your body. If any thought puts a smile on your face or gets you excited, put a circle around it. Review your circled responses and select the top three. Write those top three on another sheet of paper.
Identify Your WHY
Ok, you’ve figured out what the WHAT is. What you want to do and why you want to do it goes hand in hand. Your WHY is the motivating factor. It is the most important question of this book. If you have a strong WHY for what you want to do, then nothing can stop you. The saying, “where there is a will, there is a way” is powerfully true.
Think about it—who would you bet your money on:
1.The top fighter in the world who is going after $1 million in a fight
2.Or his opponent, who is an experienced fighter but is participating in the fight to win $100,000 to pay for a heart transplant for his mother who, otherwise, only has two weeks to live?
I know I would bet on fighter number two. Why? Because he will go all out to win no matter what. If both of his hands are broken during the fight, he will use his legs, if his legs were broken he would use his elbows, if his… you get the picture. That is how strong your WHY must be. It must be so strong, you will do whatever it takes to achieve your WHAT.
My WHAT drove me to go from a 2.1 GPA for most of high school to making straight As and one B+ during my senior year, but my WHY got me through college. That’s saying a lot about my WHY, because I had never written a paper over three pages and did not like to study. I did not do work outside of class. In addition, I did not completely understand or was not completely sold on the “college stuff.” However, I knew that if I failed there, I would probably end up back home and locked up like my older brother. I had to succeed.
What about you? What drives you? What is the WHY behind your what? If, after reading my story, you feel as though you do not have a strong WHY for your WHAT, don’t stress about it. You don’t have to come up fatherless in some desperate situation with crime and death at every turn. Anyone who had to live through that kind of struggle and has any sense is not trying to glamorize it. It ain’t cute.
If you do not have a strong WHY for your WHAT, then you may need to change your WHAT, that’s all. If you are going to succeed, if you are going to achieve things you could have never imagined for yourself, then you are going to have a strong reason that compels you to do it “by any means necessary.” Now when I say, “by any means necessary,” it is with the caveat of nothing immoral, unethical, or illegal. Criminality, for the sake of being lazy and not playing the game is not excused and is not cool. This is your life, not some “thugged-out” crime drama where you walk out of some club dressed in all Black with guns in both hands in slow motion while the building blows up behind you. This is not Hollywood.
Finding a better WHY means you will listen to whoever you have to listen to, read whatever you must read, do whatever you have to do…no matter what.
To figure out your “WHY,” look at your what and ask yourself, “Why do I want to do this?” Continue to ask yourself why until you find a reason that resonates with you. Write that down and look at your WHAT and WHY statements, then ask, “Am I willing to do whatever it takes to make this happen?” If you hesitate for a moment, or have any doubt, then you need to find a deeper why or change your what. If you say yes, then ask yourself WHY am I willing to do whatever it takes to make this happen? The first thing that comes to mind is your true WHY.
Most people’s WHY is usually associated with the way they were raised, their family, or immediate community. They have a reason to change, improve, or stop something from happening. What is this for you? Why is your WHAT important to any of the above?
Do not try to think hard about it. It is usually immediately apparent. You think about it almost all the time. It is what brings you to tears, stirs something inside of you, and energizes you. This is what your WHY does: it motivates you to DO something when other people would just shrug their shoulders. When you think about your WHY and any of those things happen, then lock on to that. Keep asking yourself WHAT and WHY until you find a combination that gives you power.
Just like when you crystallized your WHAT, when you identify your “WHY,” try to state it