Your life is precious. For that reason, you shouldn’t waste it in mediocrity. Instead, you should live your life to the fullest.
But how?
I don’t claim to have all the answers, but, from what I have learned, here are two steps to living life to the fullest:
1. Expand your mind regarding what is possible.
To live your life to the fullest, first of all you need to know what “fullest” means to you. How would it be to reach your full potential? How would it be to become everything that you can be?
If you don’t know the answer, then it will be easy for you to settle for mediocrity. You will be satisfied with something that’s below your potential. That’s why it’s important that you upgrade your definition of “fullest.”
To do that, there are two problems you need to overcome:
a. You don’t know that something is possible.
Sometimes the reason you don’t become something is simply because you don’t know that it’s possible.
An example here is a location-independent lifestyle. If you don’t know that it’s possible to work while traveling the world, you might think that 9-5 jobs are the only options available. As a result, you might not live the lifestyle you want.
To overcome this problem, you must keep yourself up-to-date. Read books and blogs. Listen to podcasts. Keep expanding your horizons.
b. You don’t believe that something is possible for you.
Even if you know about something, you might not believe that it’s possible for you. You might think that it’s too big, or that it’s beyond your reach. Consequently, you don’t dare make it your goal.
My favorite way to overcome this is by reading the stories of great people. If you do the same, you will see that those people actually have humble beginnings. They started in a situation that’s similar to yours and mine. If they were able to achieve a great level of success, so can you.
2. Pursue those possibilities.
After believing that something great is possible for you, the next step is to pursue that possibility. Take action to make the dream a reality.
For this, there are three things you should do:
a. Prepare for a marathon.
Great things take time to achieve. In fact, it could be years before you achieve them. So prepare yourself for a marathon, not a sprint. Don’t expect instant success.
b. Take risks.
You can’t get the results you want if you just play it safe. You need to take risks. That means failure is possible. That means you could work hard for seemingly nothing in return. But that’s the price to pay to achieve something great. If you just do what everyone else is doing, then by definition you are just average.
c. Learn to deal with failure.
Since failures are inevitable, it’s essential that you learn to deal with them. Don’t let failures stop you. Instead, treat them as learning opportunities. Most important: don’t lose your enthusiasm. As Winston Churchill once said, “Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm.”
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Those are the two steps you need to take. By expanding your mind about what is possible and pursuing those possibilities, you will be on your way to living life to the fullest.
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Photo by Georgie Pauwels
