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start things off with a simple question: If you could do anything without a chance of failure, and without constraints of time and money, what would you do? This is the primary question. If the answer is not an immediate, What Im doing now, then something is wrong. And this report will hopefully help you fix it. Writers and thinkers from David Deida to Camille Paglia to Sigmund Freud himself have commented on how important it is to a person's identity and self esteem that he or she has a clear life mission and is consistently working towards it. With the large changes in society the past few decades from more broken homes, to an information economy, to longer work hours people greatly lack that clear vision and purpose they were once given in their lives. Its my opinion that this greatly affects the overall psychology of the population. Children growing up without clear roles to fill, without obvious purposes to fill, meander through their early life reacting and following whatever is put before them. As a result, they never cultivate the independence and selfesteem that comes with following their purpose. They never learn to assert themselves, they remain woefully unaware of their emotional realities and their personal relationships suffer, particularly those with the opposite sex. I didnt have to look far to realize this either. Back when I was coaching men in person regularly on how to be better with women, every time I worked with a guy who was either unemployed and/or lived at home with his parents and/or hated his job, he inevitably would do terribly with women. Often despite the fact he was goodlooking and a cool guy. I even felt it myself back in 2007. In college I had been doing great with women. Then I graduated, loafed around, held a few part time jobs and ended
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up broke and living on my friends couch for a while. Suddenly women had no interest in me. And not only that, but I became pretty down and didnt feel good about myself anymore. It wasnt until I started my business and got it going that things began to turn around again. A lot of people are endlessly frustrated with aspects of their lives. Whether it be their inability to get a good relationship, to make friends, or just that theyre always insecure and unhappy. A possible cause for this is a lack of direction and purpose in their lives. And the amazing thing is, a lot of people dont ever actually sit down and THINK about this stuff. They were always told to go to this school or that school, so they went. Then they were told to get this job or that job. So they did that too. They never sat down and asked themselves what they truly wanted in their lives. We will be answering that question in this report. Well be breaking it down into parts and answering it in such a way that youll be able to work towards the answer over the coming months and years. And then a year from now, youll ask it again, reevaluate, and begin working towards it again. Hopefully each time you do this exercise, youll be a step closer.
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Ive done some form of this exercise every year for four years now. When I started, I was broke, struggling with a new business, living alone and not living a very healthy lifestyle. Now, four years later, Im living the life of my dreams. In fact, I can unequivocally say that this is the first year ever in my life that I answer the prime question with an immediate, What I am doing now. And I think thats a pretty astounding success. Especially at my age. This system is an adaptation of a similar exercise a good friend of mine has done every year for over a decade. Ive modi ied it over the years and its been in luenced by some other goal setting techniques Ive come across. So you may recognize parts of it. Its not revolutionary by any means. But it works. And thats whats important. I will spare you all of the science and information behind goalsetting techniques and why writing things down seems to have a magical effect on your brain. Im just going to tell you lat out: Do these exercises in a quiet place without distractions. Take your time, dont rush through it. Write everything down yourself and keep it. This is important. Periodically check back and review your goals at the end of it throughout the year.
In this report, Ill be giving some brief examples of each step of the exercise but will not complete them myself. This is just to give you some ideas and help you get started.
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Step 1: Brainstorming
The first step is the easiest and probably the most fun. Pull out a blank sheet of paper and make sure you have a clock nearby. Take 20 minutes to yourself, and write down everything you would like to do in your life before you die. Everything. No matter how big or small, how trivial or important. Just keep writing. Absolutely anything and everything that comes to mind, put it down on the piece of paper. This should start out very easy but get harder as the time goes by. Hold yourself to 20 minutes! Chances are the last 510 minutes youll be straining your brain. But keep going anyway. Example Things Id like to do before I die... Learn to box Get a graduate degree Speak five languages Complete a triathlon Live in China Go to the north pole Visit the pyramids Play chess in the park Take a trip somewhere nice with my mom Get married Have kids And so on.
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As you do this first exercise, you may feel yourself get selfconscious or start judging some of your answers. Stop doing this! Seriously, this list is just between you and yourself. Theres absolutely no reason to be ashamed of anything you write. And if you do find yourself hesitant to write too much down, perhaps you should ask yourself why youre so scared of accepting many of your own impulses. On the other hand, chances are, when youre writing your list, 23 entries are going to pop out at you, like giant strobe lights on your page. The specific entries may surprise you as well. This is good. If you particularly have a lot of surprises on your list, or if a lot of your entries have got you thinking or reconsidering some things already, even better... In fact, if you feel like youre already processing a lot, you may want to put the pen and paper down before the second step and take a break for a few hours.
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Finally, once youve got your lists inished, go back through it and look at how the numbers line up. Activities which you spend a lot of time doing should have high numbers. Activities you dont spend much time doing should have low numbers. What were looking for are mismatches. For instance, in the example above two big mismatches pop out at you. The irst is that the guy really doesnt enjoy his job, and he works long hours. That sucks. Its hard to be happy and motivated and con ident when youre dropping 50 weeks on something you only value at a 3. The second mismatch is that he wathes television for 15 hours a week, but he doesnt get much value out of it. Meanwhile, hes averaging less than an hour a day hanging out with friends, and thats something he really values. The answer for this person is clear: ditch the TV to spend more time with friends (or invite your friends over to watch TV with you), and get the job situation figured out. And this is just from a short, very basic list. Chances are your list has a lot more going on in it.
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1. Write down 35 actionable goals for you to complete within the next year. 2. Write down one thing you can do TODAY that will move you towards each goal. Example Goal 1: Lose 15 pounds Goal 2: Pass my CFAI exam Goal 3: Have a girlfriend Actions for each goal: For the first goal, I can join a gym. For the second goal, I can buy a study guide to start studying. And for the third goal I can join an internet dating site and/or go out tonight and meet five new people. And thats it. If youve completed everything in this report, you now have a clearer longterm vision of what you want your life to look like, some definable, actionable goals to complete within the next year, AND starting places to begin moving towards those goals. Like I said in the beginning, I recommend repeating this exercise each year. In my experience, its normal to meet most, but not all of the goals you set each year if you keep on top of them. Maybe two out of three. If you do these exercises consistently for a few years, youll realize a couple things: 1. That your priorities will change with time, and what you may consider very important today, may not seem as important a year from now.
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2. That the more of your goals that you achieve, the easier itll become to achieve subsequent goals. Because thats the beauty of all of this. Discipline is a skill. It needs to be exercised and it gets stronger. Achieving goals based on your internal desires and motivations builds self esteem, and will increase your motivation into the future. Doing this sets off a chain reaction, that if you follow it long enough, implementing change into your life will become easier and easier. And one day, years from now, youll look back, and maybe you wont even recognize the person you are now. And thatll be a good thing...
If you got something out of this report, please let me know at mark@postmasculine.com. And dont forget to keep reading the site. I am updating it constantly. http://postmasculine.com
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