5 Steps to Have an Adventure

TL; DR: To have an adventure, start with a challenging goal. Gut check to make sure it’s not a goal that someone else assigned to you. Make sure it involves actions you’ve never taken before. Here’s why.

If you really want to be happy, if you want to live a rich life where you become the ideal person you've always wanted to be, then you need to have adventures.

An adventure is an exhilarating experience that changes you, refines your character, and ultimately brings out your strengths while helping you correct some of your flaws.

And there's a process for having an adventure. It starts by making a wish. Set an ambitious, audacious goal.

In the typical adventure story, the hero is usually forced to confront a daunting challenge or conflict. Joseph Campbell named this the “Call to Adventure.”

But you don’t have to wait for conflict to show up. Create your own. Attack whatever is unhappy or imperfect in your life. What would you wish for instead?

The goal you set is going to be a guiding light and the north star behind everything you do on your adventure.

In my program, Changing the WIND, I give you five tools to help you refine and deepen this goal and make it congruent with your highest values. But if you’re not ready to take that path, this week’s Tool will get you in the right direction.

Heed This Warning Before You Start

If you feel nervousness or fear as you commit to an adventure, that's usually a good sign. it means you're pushing back against the limitations that have always lived inside of you.

It means you’re doing something that will begin to transform you into the person who will achieve this goal.

Pay close attention if you feel sick or unhappy when say your goal out loud.

If it feels like something's wrong, if it feels like you’re being stifled or doing something that doesn’t resonate, this is a sign that you haven't chosen a true goal of your own.

These gut-level warnings indicate you've chosen a quest that you think you're supposed to have, or you’ve let someone else tell you what you want. You haven't chosen a goal; it’s been assigned to you.

These assigned goals don't work without serious consequences, because they're not in alignment with who you are and who you want to be. It will be a lot harder to reach this kind of goal, and if you do it won’t bring you lasting happiness. 

Now, a third possibility is that as you read your written goal, you won't feel anything.

If that's the case, then it’s time to be more ambitious. Maybe you haven't chosen something you want badly enough or something that's going to make a big enough change in who you are and create enough growth for you.

How can you make your goal bigger and more ambitious?

Tool of the Week: Choose Your Adventure

1. First, write down a list of goals.

2. Go through your list and think of what each goal will give you as you reach it, and what each goal will demand from you.

3. Choose one ambitious goal. If you can’t decide on one, pick out your top three. Read or say each one out loud. Do a gut check on how you feel as you say it. Check for the three responses I just described above. Your body doesn't lie.

4. Choose your goal and set a time limit.

5. Pursue your goal relentlessly until you reach it. Keep a journal of what you learn and experience along the way.

Pass This Critical Checkpoint

Did you follow the five steps and pick out a quest? Excellent!

This is where the gurus tell you to come up with a specific and detailed plan on what you'll do to reach this goal.

But there’s an important checkpoint before you set off on your adventure:

Your plan has to include tasks that you've never done or tried before.

Look, if there's nothing new in your plan, and you expect it to work, then you have to wonder why you haven't achieved your goal already.

Remember the definition of insanity is to do the same thing and expect a different result. If you stick to what you've done already, then you're not going to get a different result.

You'll be stuck in your comfort zone where you're not going to grow and evolve. You're not going to get what you really want.

On the other hand, if you've got a big ambitious goal and you're ready to delve into the unknown in order to reach it, then you're on your way to becoming a new person as you do it.

Now you're on an adventure. There will be perils, fears, ordeals, and obstacles overcome.

But when you make it, you’ll find a great reward at the end.

That wraps it up for this week.

If you’re enjoying these rants, lessons, and tools, I would love to hear from you.

If you’re not, I would like to hear from you even more.

Reply to this email and tell me what you think, what you’d like to see in the future, or just to drop me a line about your cat.

I don’t always have the time to reply to your message, but I read every one of them.

Jacob