Day 148 – Purpose Driven

Several books are out there that talk about living a purposeful life, a principled life, or a life focused on consistent aims. They all have great advice on this concept and many of them are sitting in my book shelf, or in my kindle library right now and occasionally I will look at them and consider pondering a few words of wisdom from their pages again one day.

Most of these books, however, tend to be impractical. Very rarely did they offer me any real guidance on how to become the person that was described in their pages. Rick Warren, a great writer, has a very lofty appeal to this type of thing – but rarely am I given a bit of practical guidance on how to get to the lofty state that he encourages. Stephen Covey has a formulaic approach, but the type of life he proposes all at once was overwhelming to me and after repeated failure – soul crushing. Napoleon Hill, the most simple, gave me the best practical advice – just write your goal down and it will happen. However, beyond that one simple nugget, the rest of his writings encourage a passionate drive toward that objective. That never works for me – because I am not willing to throw everything in my life away as a sacrifice for my selfish ambition.

I could repeat a summary of the hundreds of coaching, self help style books that I have read, pondered and tried to implement. However, I am too lazy this morning. I just glanced at a stack of books and those were the authors on the top. All of these people were amazing, and I am glad I have read their words – but at the end of the day the only words that really count are the ones that I write. You see, my life, my ambition, my personality, my method of wrangling in chaos is different then anyone else. Different then you. My words probably will help no one but myself – but that is the main point of this blog.

Establish purpose in your life, set your goals by writing them down, and come up with a method of achieving them. That is what the 365 commitment has done for me. I combined the advice of all the major authors like Warren, Hill, Covey and I picked out the best parts. I am very thankful for the video that I watched that inspired this whole thing. I had been searching for a formula to follow for several years – and 148 days ago, I found it. My unstated goal in this blog has been to motivate myself to keep the formula, provide some practical advice that I felt was missing in the books I have read, and to encourage people to get on the path. Your path, and they way you hit the path maybe different – that is OK – but the point is that only the people that are on the path will be the ones that truly discover purpose and as a result achieve it.

So here is to my next iteration, the next day in my attempt to be what I am not now. Tomorrow, I ride at dawn.

Guy Reams (148)
365 Member

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