07 Apr NAVIGATING YOUR LIFE: WHO SUCCEEDS?
Moss Jackson
Psychologist and Success Coach
I recently sent you a post on the Navigating Your Life Formula, a kind of GPS I created over the last ten years. If you did not get it you can read it here. You can also sign up below to receive future posts on Life Navigation or go to my website.
I thought I would follow up with this post outlining the five key qualities of people I have coached who are winning their game of life and using their energies to succeed, accomplish and attain high life satisfaction. In my book “I Didn’t Come To Say Goodbye,” I describe in detail the psychology of Life Navigation but today I just want to share some recent insights about Navigators with you.
WHO SUCCEEDS?
- VISION AND DIRECTION
Many Successful people have a clear picture of their ideal future and steps they can take to get there. Often this vision comes from a life passion such as wanting to create and operate a company, attain a championship football title, run a marathon, create a loving and long-lasting relationship, rescue abandoned and abused animals, etc. These visions are highly personal and appear to be internally driven.
- ACTIVE ORIENTATION
Don’t wait! Take action, even if you do not know what you are doing taking action leads to learning, especially from your mistakes which are inevitable. Waiting to know for sure is usually a waste of time. Success is a function of invention and discovery. If you wait until certainty shows up, you may have lost your advantage and others might have passed you by. Success has been vastly overrated. Take a shot, experiment, learn from your mistakes and try again. I think it was Winston Churchill who once said something like “take action, learn from your mistakes and just do not make the same mistake again. Make a new one!”
- SET GOALS
Sometime, you have to stop just thinking about something and instead set your target on a goal. After I woke up in the hospital a couple of years ago due to a major illness, I faced a very weakened body, terrible balance, expressive aphasia due to a brain infection and crappy writing called dysgraphia. As I lay in my bed, I thought about my options, i.e., let the medical staff determine my progress, lie there and rest or start moving my body, ask for speech therapy and think about my next project. I decided, without any evidence, to start my new book on radical life extension and to live until age 125!
- GET INTO ACTION
Moving your butt here is the key! Anytime a nurse, aid, family member or visitor came into my room, I would say ‘Let’s take a walk. Help me put on my bathrobe to cover up my naked ass, get my walker and walk with me around the floor.” First it was down the hall, followed up by a full tour of the floor, eventually leading to going outside and navigating some uneven landscapes. My nurses would have stopped me if they knew that I was walking outside but I was in action, not thinking mode. Last week I averaged walking four miles a day.
- BE RESILIENT
What’s a super ball? A ball that bounces higher than the height you drop it. Pain is relative. Any athlete who is passionate, goal focused and in action perceives the pain as part of the process. It isn’t a message to stop. It’s an invitation to take another step or to push a little harder. This is known as “Grit,” the determination to persevere no matter what.
- GRATITUDE
Every day take some time to appreciate your life. For example, today as I drove to work I was grateful for the following: my ability to drive my car, the scenery as the rain fell, my wife and children, my clients, my creativity and curiosity and my health. I did not focus on anything negative, I just what I was grateful for. It was a five minute exercise but I felt they surge of dopamine and oxytocin as I surrendered to my gratitudes. Yes it was raining outside but I was smiling inside.
OK, I said five qualities. I took the liberty to add a sixth!
I hope these qualities I outlined are helpful to you in understanding the notion of Life Navigation. Sign up here if you want to receive more posts on living an extraordinary life. Also check out my new book “I Didn’t Come To Say Goodbye: Navigating the Psychology of Immortality” on Amazon.
I wish you continued success.
Keep dreaming.
Get into action.
Take a risk.
Fail at something.
Stop playing it safe.
Get that there is no safety.
Have gratitude for your life.
Stop complaining and blaming.
Live life as a Navigator.