Hereâs an overview of what I did. Some of this will be a repeat for those of you who are familiar with my content and personal history.
1. Got to a strong pain point where I knew I had to change.
When I hit my early thirties, I looked around and realized the life I was living was not the life I wanted. In many ways it was the opposite of what I wanted.
I had a relationship I didnât like (traditional monogamous marriage), a financial situation I didnât like (massive debt, massive monthly overhead, minimal net worth, zero savings), a body I didnât like (flabby, pale, balding, badly dressed, dorky-looking beta male), a business I didnât like (a typical hours-for-dollars, location dependent business with employees that had to be managed), a sexual life I didnât like (boring wife-sex with a typical, nonsexual, overweight wife about 2 â 3 times per month if I was very lucky), and a future that looked terrible (no plan, no change in sight).
I had hit all the goals in my twenties that society told me I needed to have, like âGet married!â âHave kids!â âStart a business!â âMake a lot of money!â And yet here I was, living a life that was the opposite of what I knew would make me happy.
I knew I had to change. I had no choice.
Maybe you havenât hit that pain point yet, and thatâs fine. Maybe youâre just comfortable or bored. If thatâs the case, look into the mirror and ask yourself how your life will be in 10-20 years from now if you donât change anything. That will cause you some pain, I promise.
2. I clearly defined my ideal life.
As Iâve talked about before, one day I canceled all of my appointments, went to the park by myself on a sunny day with my laptop, sat down on a park bench, brought up a blank Word document, and wrote out exactly what my perfect life would be if I started over right now, completely from scratch, with no wife, no kids, no business, no nothing. I told myself I could add some of that stuff back in there when I was done if I wanted (and I did with some of the items), but I started from absolute zero.
When I was done, I had two pages describing my perfect life. The bad news is that it was just about the opposite of the life I was currently living. The good news is that it was all perfectly achievable and realistic, given a little time.
3. I set specific goals based on this new vision.
Using this vision of my ideal life, I started setting goals to get there. This was the easy part. Iâm very good at goal setting and always have been. The problem was that the goals I had been operating under were goals I was told to want (Societal Programming) rather than want I truly wanted.
This time, and for the first time in my life, my goals would be mine. Not my parents’, not my (ex) religion’s, not my society’s, not my politics’, not my wife’s, not Hollywood’s, not my friends’. Mine.
4. I got off my ass and got to work.
I didnât sit around fantasizing. I didnât sit around complaining about everything. I didnât waste my time arguing with people on the internet or playing video games. Nope, I fucking got to work. Pumped with my vision and my goals, and terrified at what would happen if I didnât change, I got to work on my new plan. Everyone around me immediately noticed a difference in my attitude.
I also started to Alpha-up. I knew that a beta male would not be able to accomplish these goals, so I had to become an Alpha. Again, I had no choice. I got to work on being more confident, not taking crap from anyone, and moving in a direction I wanted regardless of what other people in my life said or did (including my wife at the time).
5. I formulated my Mission.
From the mistakes I made in my twenties, I knew that goals and plans would not be enough. Goals are critical, but theyâre not all you need. If all you have are goals, you will eventually hit them (if you work on them that is!) and then once youâve achieved them, youâll stand around like an idiot and say, âUh⦠oh no. Now what?â
I knew that I needed a Mission, something far more important than any goal or project, something that had no âend date,â something that would drive me regardless of my goals or current life status, something I could work on literally for the rest of my life that would make me happy not only today, but 25+ years from now.
I didnât know what this Mission was, so I worked on discovering it, always looking inward, digging deeper and deeper. It took me a few years to clarify it precisely. Many of you have asked what my Mission is. For the first time ever, Iâm about to tell you. Itâs this:
As a man who is the ideal example of long-term masculine happiness, financially, in business, with physical health, and with relationships, I will continue to help one million men achieve a life of long-term consistent happiness. From this, and from businesses that help both men and companies, I have functionally unlimited wealth to do whatever I want and explore the entire world.
This is not a goal. This is a Mission. There is no âend dateâ to it. It will take me the rest of my life to both achieve this and maintain this. Itâs what drives me in addition to my goals and my vision.
Thus armed with a Mission, I will never run into boredom or a ânow what?â state so many older and middle-aged men wrestle with.
6. I broke my life up into phases.
Despite having a Mission that could last the rest of my life, I knew that regarding the details, things I want now will not be things I want 20 years from now. Men who are 28 have different priorities and desires than men who are 58. I had to acknowledge this. I knew that I would want different things at age 45, 55, and 65 than I currently did in my thirties.
The example Iâve often given at this blog is your woman life. When youâre 25, youâll probably want to bang lots of hot bitches, never have any kids, never live with a woman, and just focus on freedom and pussy. Thatâs great! But when youâre my age (I just celebrated my forty-sixth birthday), I promise youâre going to want something in your woman life that looks a lot different (unless you are a very rare exception to the rule). It doesnât have to be monogamy (Iâm not monogamous and never will be), but it will likely be something more stable, pair-bonded, and long-term.
So I broke my life up into several phases. Your life might be three or four phases. Maybe it will just be two phases. The number of phases and the type of phases are completely up to you. For me, I chose two phases.
My first phase is Empire-Building Phase. For me (and you will probably be different) this phase covers a 37-year span, going from age 16 to age 53. During this phase, my focus is building life infrastructure and baselines in my financial life and woman life, exactly as I talk about in The Unchained Man, as well as a third baseline I don’t discuss in that book that I’ll talk about in a minute.