“No matter what is happening in life or in the world – war, natural disaster, poor health, pain, the death of loved ones – if existence is filled with art, music and literature, life will be fulfilling, a joy.” ~ Karen DeCrow
Success is a science. Once you’ve learned the rules of the game, you no longer need to question what your future will bring. As Abraham Lincoln has famously said—“The best way to predict your future is to create it.”
You are the designer of your destiny.
Your destiny is not based on fate, luck, or outside factors. Rather, as Thomas Monson has said—“Decisions determine destiny.”
It’s all up to you. So here’s how to create a wildly happy and deeply fulfilling life:
1. Take 100% Responsibility For Your Life
If you are the designer of your destiny, you are ultimately responsible for your future.
No one else is.
Not your boss.
Not the economy.
Not your genetics.
Not your parents or how you were raised.
Just YOU.
And that’s the exciting part!
Once you obtain what psychologists call an internal locus of control, you can create whatever life you intend. An internal locus of control means that you perceive yourself, not external factors, as the ultimate controller and operator of your life.
Where are you right now in your life?
What are your finances like?
What are your relationships like?
Are you happy?
If you take 100% responsibility, you must confess that every aspect of your life right now is on you. You created your present circumstances through your decisions—decisions determine destiny. You have unlimited power to create whatever future you want.
2. Decide What You Want
In order to create a wildly happy and deeply fulfilling life, you need to determine and decide what you want.
One of Stephen Covey’s 7 Habits of Highly Effective People is—Begin with the end in mind. In all things, there are two creations: The mental creation and the physical creation.
Before a house is built, plans are made by architects and designers. It is only after the plans are devised that the physical construction takes place. If you put in the front-end work to generate a quality mental creation, you can ensure it will organically unfold in real life.
3. Write It Down
Goals and plans in your head don’t work. What if an architect just kept the plans for a house in her head and never drew them out?
A huge mess.
You need to write down in insane detail what it is you want. Darren Hardy, in his book, The Compound Effect, talks about how he wrote 40 pages of detail describing exactly what he wanted in a wife. He wrote down her personality, character, key attributes, attitudes and philosophies about life, tastes, interests, even what kind of family she’d come from, culture, and physical makeup down to the texture of her hair.
If you met his wife, you’d be shocked in almost an eerie suspicion about how precise his wife is to what he wrote down. That’s because he knew what he wanted, in insane detail.
That’s how our lives need to be. It ensures every detail of our life is designed by us.
4. Read It Daily
If an architect wrote down her plans and never looked at them again, things would get forgotten and lost. She needs to consult her plans every day to ensure she’s getting closer to what she mentally mapped.
You will need to read your goals and mental creation every single day if you want it to actually come about in the detail you desire.
5. Decide Who You Need To Know
There are endless paths to the same destination. Some will take years or decades, while others may take only a few days.
You must ask yourself as Peter Thiel does—“How can you achieve your 10 year plan in the next 6 months?”
Relationships are the bridge to progress. There are certain people who could reach their hand down the ladder and pull you up. You just need to reach out to these people. Make friends with them. Serve them.
By doing this, you bypass several unnecessary steps that most people take in the name of “paying dues.”
6. Focus On Results—Not Hard Work
Dan Sullivan, founder of Strategic Coach, explains that there are two economies: The Economy of Hard Work and The Economy of Results.
Some people think hard work is the recipe. Others think about the most efficient way to get a desired result.
Tim Ferriss, in his book, The 4-Hour Body, explains what he calls Minimum Effective Dose (MED), which is simply the smallest dose that will yield a desired result and anything past the MED is wasteful. Water boils at 100°C at standard air pressure—it is not “more boiled” if you add more heat.
What is the fastest way to get your desired outcome?
How could you get where you want to be in 10 years in 6 months?
Hint: Relationships are the path.
With all my love,