Hey you!

It’s time for a new week challenge – this time it’s about living a purposeful life. It’s the 5th pillar originating from the book the six pillars of self-esteem by Nathaniel Branden. Perhaps the most important pillar on a holistic level – the one thing that can give you that drive to do things you never thought you had the capacity to do. BUT no pillar can stand on their own, it’s a symbiosis of practices that together creates a toolbox with incredible potential to raise your self-esteem massively. Something I personally can attest to after 6 months of implementation.

However, this video will only focus in on the chapter living purposefully and some practical implications in how to do that through the help of the book “the 4-hour work week” by Timothy Ferris.

Some extracts from the book:

“To live purposefully is, among other things, to live productively, which is a necessity of making ourselves competent to life. Productivity is the act of supporting our existence by translating our thoughts into reality, of setting our goals and working for their achievement, of bringing knowledge, goods, or services into existence.”  (1995, Branden, The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem, P.130)

What living Purposefully Entails

As a way of operatihg in the world, the practice of living purposefully entails the following core issues.

1. Taking responsibility for formulating one’s goals and purposes consciously.

“If we are to be in control of our own life, we need to know what we want and where we wish to go. We need to be concerned with such questions as: What do I want for myself in five, ten, twenty years? What do I want my life to add up to? What do I want to accomplish professionally? What do I want in the area of personal relationships? If I wish to marry, why? What is my purpose? Within the context of a particular relationship, what are my goals? In relating to my children, what are my goals? If I have intellectual or spiritual aspirations, what are they? Are my goals clearly in focus or are they vague and indefinable?” (1995, Branden, The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem, P.133-134)

2. Being concerned to identify the actions necessary to achieve one’s goals.

“If our purposes are to be purposes and not daydreams, we need to ask: How do I get there from here? What actions are necessary? What subpurposes must be accomplished on the way to my ultimate purpose? If new knowledge is required, how will I obtain it? If new resources are needed, how will I acquire them? If our goals are long-range ones, action plans will almost certainly entail subaction plans-that is, plans for the attainment of subpurposes. Do we take responsibility for thinking these steps out? Success in life belongs to those who do.” (1995, Branden, The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem, P.134)

3. Monitoring behavior to check that it is in alignment with one’s goals.

“We can have clearly defined purposes and a reasonable action plan but drift off course by distractions, the emergence of unanticipated problems, the pull of other values, an unconscious reordering of priorities, lack of adequate mental focus, or resistance to doing what one has committed oneself to do. A conscious policy of monitoring actions relative to stated purposes helps us to manage problems of this kind. Sometimes the solution will be to rededicate ourselves to our original intentions. Sometimes we will need to rethink what our most important goals actually are and perhaps reformulate our purposes. (1995, Branden, The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem, P.134)

4. Paying attention to the outcomes of one’s actions, to know whether they are leading where .one wants to go.

Our goals may be clear and our actions congruent, but our initial calculations about the right steps to take may prove incorrect. Perhaps there were facts we failed to consider. Perhaps developments have changed the context. So we need to keep asking: Are my strategy and tactics working? Am I getting where I want to go? Are my actions producing the results I anticipated? We often see people in business failing this principle by blindly reciting, “But what we are doing always worked in the past.” In a dynamic economy, yesterday’s strategy and tactics are not necessarily adaptive today. (1995, Branden, The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem, P.134)

The general Objectives:

#1 – Sitting down for at least 5 minutes and WRITING out thoughts and ideas for how to live a more purposeful life. If you don’t know how to go about it, these questions may help you along the way;

1. What were you passionate about as a child?
2. If you didn’t have a job, how would you choose to fill those hours?
3. What makes you forget about the world around you?
4. What issues do you hold close to your heart?
5. What kind of conversations do you have with your closest friends?
6. What is on your bucket list?
7. If you had a dream, could you make it happen? (source: http://www.lifehack.org/articles/communication/7-questions-help-you-find-your-life-purpose.html)

Also have a look at my video focused in on finding the purpose of life: https://www.youtube.com/edit?video_id=aiWEF4-JJvc

#2 – The Pareto Principle

80% of results come from 20% of actions. It’s as simple as that, just accept it. So take another 5 minutes each day and think about what you’re doing on a regular basis and how much value it’s actually contributes to your life. Answer the following questions;“

What 20% of sources are causing 80% of my problems and unhappiness?

What 20% of sources are resulting in 80% of my desired outcome and happiness?

#3 – doing the right thing

At least three times per day at scheduled times, he had to ask himself the following question: “Am I inventing things to do to avoid the important? Or “Am I being productive or just active?”

This could be extended with:

• (1) Define a to-do list and
• (2) define a not-to-do list.

The Extensive Massive Week objectives for the one that one that wants to go all in:

My goal for the week:

• Spending a minimum of 3×50 min sessions strategizing and planning out a 6 month plan for how to live a more purposefull life; what I want to achive with clear goals and purposes defined. Doing what I truley want to do – start and run my own business / alternative changin career path into digital marketing.

My week will look like this:

• Every evening outline the 2 most important things I need to get done during the next day.
• Every day I’m going to sit down for 30 minutes and see how I can streamline my life; applying the Parreto Principle with a different focus every day:
  • Mointoiring my day and evaluating what I’ve done
  • Food
  • training
  • Social
  • My Youtube channel
• Every hour ask myself “am I inventing work right now just to be busy?”
• Applying Parkinsons Law (see detailed descrpition further down);

1. Limit tasks to the important to shorten work time (80/20).
2. Shorten work time to limit tasks to the important (Parkinson’s Law).

• Applying the pomodoro principle – using a timer set for 25-50 minutes before getting uo and jumping around.
• No Multitasking, only doing one thing at the time. Every time I abrupt myself and do something that’s not on the prioritazied list it will lead to a fine of one dollar.
• MEDIA blockout – No new sources of information, media, information books, youtube videos, Only revisit old material or material directly correlating to the outlining of my plan.
• No social media, facebook, messenger, etc. Except one hour between 18-19.
• Mail checking only twice a day. 12.00 and 19.00

These rules will be applied Monday through Friday. And if I break them, intentionally, I promise to to any kind of rejection theraphy suggested by the first person sugesting something.

More on The Parkinson’s Law:

“Parkinson’s Law dictates that a task will swell in (perceived) importance and complexity in relation to the time allotted for its completion. It is the magic of the imminent deadline. If I give you 24 hours to complete a project, the time pressure forces you to focus on execution, and you have no choice but to do only the bare essentials. If I give you a week to complete the same task, it’s six days of making a mountain out of a molehill. If I give you two months, God forbid, it becomes a mental monster. The end product of the shorter deadline is almost inevitably of equal or higher quality due to greater focus.

This presents a very curious phenomenon. There are two synergistic approaches for increasing productivity that are inversions of each other:

1. Limit tasks to the important to shorten work time (80/20).
2. Shorten work time to limit tasks to the important (Parkinson’s Law).

The best solution is to use both together: Identify the few critical tasks that contribute most to income and schedule them with very short and clear deadlines.”

-from the 4-hour work week by Timothy Ferris

Links to videos mentioned in the description:

The first Week Challenge I did on Living Purposefully:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E91toMQ1W94&list=PLxw2jMXwRfsle2F8tOZeGACPWxpqVft2n

My video focused in on finding the purpose of life: https://www.youtube.com/edit?video_id=aiWEF4-JJvc

The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem Audio Book: https://youtu.be/mfFUVnwCNVY?t=1h54m14s

The 4-hour Work Week Audio Book:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TM36LmaKuKs

PRODUCTIVITY Playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLxw2jMXwRfsl1cvqFBFEdyJE6lWNJY00P

Rejection Therapy Playlists:

Week 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sxEVmwWsaHw

Week 2:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUTocnY8Mxs

Week 3: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=anw0keWIf-8

Week 4: https://youtu.be/GFHK7O5DrxI?list=PLxw2jMXwRfskSFEl6sI9PzjgMUBZogiGG

Week 5: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Od3M1x6UDCs&list=PLxw2jMXwRfsmwkP3SvSSK7cegXB4eutFg

Week 6: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8aGxvi5qw1A&list=PLxw2jMXwRfskKqy6INIjOFJDJI8_jPAE1

Week 7: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-T1I6j_04xs&list=PLxw2jMXwRfsluXabU_1_o4ucowiz118gG

Week 8: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XM1GPDsP-18&list=PLxw2jMXwRfsl7LL_1QfrV_G0AU35o5YWS

Week 9: https://youtu.be/m-gx1cmBGH8?list=PLxw2jMXwRfsnYfBFiRZid3g3KhSGDvOaS

Week 10: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SrKk416Sh4I&list=PLxw2jMXwRfslj5Eq20SWAcd6GPLU-sfRH

Week 11: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KrSOXiOYKr0&list=PLxw2jMXwRfsn9NHLgWJWCdV1l89LqACFR

Week 12: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RsT4SXifA8o&list=PLxw2jMXwRfsnoM1TBnJzmnKTBRUmgRY1y

Music in this episode:

ON AND ON by Nicolai Heidlas Music https://soundcloud.com/nicolai-heidlas
Creative Commons — Attribution 3.0 Unported— CC BY 3.0
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/b…

REAL RIDE by Nicolai Heidlas Music https://soundcloud.com/nicolai-heidlas
Creative Commons — Attribution 3.0 Unported— CC BY 3.0
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/b…