Do you doubt the concept of “an ultimate mission” for your life? Most people your age do. It is common to think about enjoying the present, expecting tomorrow to fall into place on its own. It is common to leave the big decisions for later, expecting the future and present to have some sort of disconnected relationship where one does not really affect the other. It is common to feel lost or doubtful about your ability to manifest your dreams in the near future – to the point where you build rationalizations for why you don’t need to abide by some of the most common and well accepted advice from amazing people who got to live their dreams.
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They say you should know what your objectives are, and you are never too young to know them. But what do they know?
It is common to believe that settling on a specific mission at this age is short-sited.
I challenge you to find a single individual who achieved success before 35 (by the fruit of their own labor) who didn’t know exactly what they wanted to do and what they were working on long before everyone else their age did.
Mark Zuckerberg was one of the few Harvard freshmen who could clearly tell you his life’s defined objective back in 2003. This applies to all other millennials who have shaped the world before their 35th birthday. To them, an objective was not “become rich” or “sell a company” or “write a book”, it was something clear and specific like:
“Build a new platform that connects the world through sharing thoughts, pictures, and moments and launch it with Harvard students before the end of my sophomore year.”
You’d be surprised how powerful it can be to write something specific on a piece of paper, especially if you see it and recite it every day. This exercise places a specific desire somewhere in your subconscious and begins to drive your decision-making throughout the day.
I learned about definite objectives from Napoleon Hill. He was a magazine editor in the early 20th century when he got the opportunity to interview Andrew Carnegie (one of the world’s most powerful and wealthy men at the time). He asked him if there was a recipe to his enormous success. Carnegie returned his question with a challenge:
“If I were to connect you with all my successful friends, and you were to ask them that same question, I bet they would all give you the same response. I bet that you could make a career out of educating people on that universal response and the underlying laws that rule it.”*
Hill interviewed Ford, Edison, Schwab, and close to 500 other millionaires and billionaires who built major empires from nothing. They all gave the same answer.
Hill’s book, “Think and Grow Rich” is credited with driving thousands of individuals out of the Great Depression, delivering the tools with which they built great empires and contributed to the rise of the United States during the first half of the 20th century.
Napoleon Hill’s recipe for success can be boiled down to this (from three immensely powerful books and thousands of pages you should read immediately):
“Without a definite purpose, there can be no success”.
Your twenties are a time for experimentation, joy, adventure, and building awesome memories. In the midst of all that activity, sometimes you will forget to make the choices that will more quickly align you with your life’s ultimate mission. While it is true that your social, sexual, and romantic experiences are a major ingredient of your journey (especially during this time), it will not be uncommon for those desires to cloud your priorities during this most important of decades.
If you know you have an incredible future ahead, do not sell yourself short. You have the talent and ability to turn yourself into exactly what you are envisioning. You have an enormous contribution to make to the world much faster than you realize. I bet you already have a general idea of what that could be.
How do you take that general idea and turn it into a definite objective? Here are three easy steps.
1. What do you think about on a daily basis other than sex and friends? Make a list and ponder it.
Forget about your current job for a moment, and think about the thoughts that constantly occupy your mind. When you don’t think about your friends, or who you’d like to have sex with (or which of your friends you’d like to have sex with), what do you think about?
Is it dancing? Writing? Operating systems? Airplanes? Cars? Finance? Television series? Comedy?
Make the list as long as you can until you cannot write anything else. There will be a lot of clutter, but somewhere in that list your soul’s greatest urges will shine through brighter than the sun. You will recognize them as soon as you look at them. Your gut does not lie.
Your life’s mission and ultimate objective has something to do with those magic bullet points.
2. What does a normal progression from where you are to a life where you can be free to pursue those things look like? Answer in three to four clear steps.
How does one go from where you are to that awesome place? Here is an example:
I want to launch a mobile application which trains salespeople to perform at their highest level.
Three steps to get started:
- Come up with a specific product that can be built with minimal investment and test it with potential clients. Find a product design that resonates through feedback and get the data needed to build a solid case for investment.
- Use work and results from step 1 to get the necessary investment to build the first iteration of this product.
- Reconnect with potential clients from step one and convert them into the company’s early adopters. Launch company.
3. Write out an affirmation that states you will develop the perfect plan to complete step 1 before a specified deadline. Read this affirmation twice a day with passion, excitement, and love. Watch your brain take care of the rest!
Yes, it sounds like hocus pocus magic, but why not try it? Why waste time criticizing the method? Why waste time searching for a scientific rational explanation to explain how it works if it does?
Let me appeal to the logical side of your brain for a minute. Can reading a daily affirmation twice a day block you from attaining your dreams in any way, shape, or form? It cannot. Will it harm you in any way? No.
What could you lose by trying? Nothing.
What could you gain by trying? Everything.
There you have it. Write an affirmation like this:
“By the 12 day of December, 2014, I will figure out the best plan to designing and executing on a specific sales enablement application which can be built with a minimal investment – the plan will come from my mind and it will come before this date. Every day I get the right ideas and insights to come up with the perfect plan and set it into motion. It is all I think about and all I want.”
Read it loudly and passionately. Say it with love (maybe think of your loved ones while you say it). Read it twice a day. See what happens.
Thank Napoleon Hill for teaching us this powerful method. Purchase “Think and Grow Rich” and start reading it (or listening to it on Audible). It is the greatest investment of money and time you will make this year (honestly, ever).
If you’d like us to guide you through the process of developing your life’s ultimate goal, understanding your personality’s strengths and weaknesses, and selecting the books that will bring you the knowledge you need to get to where you want to go, don’t waste another second and get your free insights from TELEDIPITY.
Andrew Gabelic is the CEO & Founder of Teledipity, a free pocket life coach with an eerie ability to send you the right self-improvement content at the right time (based on your personality and life stage). Check out what it says about you!