As I’ve gotten older, I’ve learned that life is what you make of it. Your reality is negotiable. Getting more out of life is a matter of choosing to live to the fullest and being smart about how you spend your time.
You can learn to bend life to your will, and once you’ve figured that out, anything is possible. The trick is in figuring out how to systematically change your life.
Most of us could use more doing and less consuming. To acquire new skills, live an interesting life and do adventurous things, you have to get good at putting in the effort it takes to actually do those things.
Intentional effort is the magic ingredient to an amazing life. Some people might hear that and get depressed. I prefer to feel encouraged knowing that talent doesn’t determine our fate, hard work does.
If you want to accomplish more but aren’t sure where to start, here are three of my favorite tips for getting more out of life:
- Treat life as an experiment
All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better. -Ralph Waldo Emerson
An experiment is meant to find out the answer to something you don’t know for sure. Too many of us live life by a set of self-imposed rules that make us act as if we know answers we really don’t know.
“My boss wouldn’t let me take that trip to Thailand.”
“My blog readers wouldn’t buy an ebook from me.”
“I’m bad at languages, I could never learn Spanish.”
“I’m not good at sports, I wouldn’t be able to finish a marathon.”We tell ourselves self-defeating things all the time. We’re afraid of failure, worried about what people think, and nervous about trying new things.
Instead of caring about the outcome so much, why not look at these scenarios and anything else in life as an experiment?
Living life as an experiment unlocks a whole lot of awesomeness:
Because when we live life as an experiment, we are far more willing to take risks, to acknowledge failure, to learn and develop. That’s what experiments are all about: discovery and growth. There is no real failure in an experiment because it’s all data. If something doesn’t work, that’s simply data that leads to changing behavior to see if something else does work.
-Peter Bregman, Live Life as an Experiment - Make time for the important things
Run that errand, jump on Twitter, answer the phone, check the news, respond to email… wait, where’d the day go?
Sound familiar?
With all the distractions and media in our modern lives, days slip by unintentionally without warning.
You’ll never keep on top of every email, tweet, blog post, news story, phone call, etc. anyway. Call it fear of missing out, or just good old procrastination, what we should be doing often loses out to staying plugged in.
The only way to ensure you get done what really needs to get done is to set aside the time. Literally. On your calendar. If you believe something is important enough, you should block out time to get it done. Treat it like an important meeting.
And if it’s really important (or if your will isn’t strong enough to get it done), set the time aside first thing in the morning, and do nothing else until your mission has been accomplished.
- Practice deliberately
The key to getting better at anything is deliberate practice.
Scientific research shows that the quality of your practice is just as important as the quantity. Simply spending time doing something won’t lead you to expert levels of performance.
To gain skills rapidly or approach expert-level status at something, you must understand the importance of deliberate practice and learn how to incorporate it into your daily life.
Deliberate practice involves formally structuring your practice with the specific goal of improving performance. Mere repetition won’t do. Your practice must be: intentional, aimed at improving performance, designed for your current skill level, combined with immediate feedback, and repetitious.
Learn more about deliberate practice, and how to use it to your advantage.
“Life Begins At The End Of Your Comfort Zone.” -Neale Donald Walsch tweet this
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Great points. I would add to the list make all choices and decisions based on your core values as that is the key to real fulfillment and life on your own terms.
Really love this post, Corbett.
It’s such a simple thing: Try something. Prioritize it. Practice it.
It works for acquiring many of the things that define us: knowledge, skills, habits…
Thanks for this, Corbett. I love the idea of treating life as an experiment. It really takes the power away from the idea of “failure” and allows us to do as Thomas Edison did and just find out all the ways that something won’t work!
Took a peek at your deliberate practice post as well and it’s so great to be reminded that sometimes you just have to sit down, shut up, buckle up, and do the work.
Great post. I loved the quote about the experiments and I agree that the practice and hard work are the keys to success!
Amazing post Corbett. You hit the nail right on the head
Good stuff! ‘make time for important things’ is especially true for me…I loose hours procrastinating and ‘faffing’ and then frustrate myself but not getting stuff done, yet still make the same mistakes again!
Beautiful piece! I agree – it’s better to have life react to you….rather than you react to life. This is how life does what you want, rather than you getting sidetracked whenever things don’t go exactly as planned.
Corbett,
Like the post . . .simple, direct, no fluff.
I think the difficulty in following the three steps is each step involves things that can be difficult or unpleasant. Experiments? We’re bound to fail some of time. Make time? We have to say no to things we enjoy. Deliberate practice? It’s uncomfortable because we have to practice on the edge of our skill level where we’ll make more mistakes.
But doing what is difficult or unpleasant in pursuit of something worthwhile really does help us “get more out of life.”
Thanks!
Kurt
Inspiring article Corbett. Just what I needed to hear (read).
The old saying,”repetition is the mother of skill” is outdated. I like your take on it; Deliberate repetition is key to achieving expert status.
Thanks for the article!
Nathan
Nice article.
Since the birth of my second daughter I have taken a very different outlook on my life, blog, work, websites…..etc
For now – my family time is the most precious to me. Unfortunately my online ventures have suffered slightly. But I am much calmer, once I focus my work around my family I seem to get a better quality of work done.
Nice article
John
Great article as usual Corbett. I like how you structured the article Corbett (actually all your articles in general). Thanks for sharing the ideas above. I would add (1) focus on what you can control in life vs. getting frustrated about circumstances you can’t control, (2) set a purpose for your life (still in process of setting mine) (3) make the time to be with friends and family.
Thanks for sharing.
Great article Corbett, one of the great things about the internet is that we can spread simple, but still under utilised concepts like self-experimentation.
Too many people still treat what they see in newspapers and authority figures as gospel without asking the questions ‘do this apply to me’ & ‘I wonder what would happen if i did this’.
Regards
Aaron Morton