Men are builders.

We work best when we are creating something or working towards a goal.

We lay to waste when we are idle and purposeless.

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A man who has a 'why' can bear any 'how'.

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If you have trouble assigning a goal for yourself, please select any from the examples listed below:

• Lose X kg of weight – this would involve doing extra exercise and recording your weight every morning.
• Set up a side-business – The easiest side businesses are the ones you can run over the internet, of which, the easiest one is setting up niche affiliate marketing websites that generate you some passive income.
• Cover X% of syllabus and aim for X GPA (for students)
• Learn to code – learning to code is an essential skill in the modern day, and it makes an excellent mission for those who plan to become an entrepreneur at some point.

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These are mostly short-term goals, there has always been importance on having goals but what is your "mission"?

Do you want to go to the moon? Fuck, better yet, do you want to be the first to Mars? Nothing is stopping you.

Do you think Alexander The Great would've gone down to history if he stopped moving forward towards his mission? He contemplated himself like everyone does, but that is no reason to stop.

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Introspection: Who Are You?

Before we start doing anything else, we first need to know who we are. You may feel that you already know who you are, but chances are, you’re wrong. A lot of your understanding of “you” is diluted to conform to societal norms and persuasive mainstream thought.

When you go about your life, you meet people who praise various aspects of your personality. You feel good when you get that praise, and your brain is hardwired to chase that feeling.

You try to be more of what people praise in you and try to do away with parts of you that other people don't like. You do this subconsciously, with no filtering of whether people are praising/criticizing you because they want you to better, or because they (consciously or subconsciously) want you to be like them.

While this makes you socially “adjusted”, it also chips away a large part of 'you'.

(Notice how people tend to become like whomever they spend time with).

The most “well adjusted” people are either faking it or are the most generic of all people – mainstream thoughts, mainstream ideas, mainstream opinions - the most replaceable/automatable bunch of people around.

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Exercise: Where Do My Wants Come From?

A lot of the things that we think we want are planted into our heads by third parties – usually marketers and society.

Take a paper and write down the things you want out of yourself over the next 10 years. These could be anything, from having a wife and children to owning a sports car, to running a business empire, to have a high paid job, to living with the Shaolin monks, to getting revenge on someone who has wronged you – all of them, and it better be a long, well thought out list for the next 10 years.

Now, think about each of these goals with an open mind and ask yourself:

• Do I want this or do other people want this of me?
• Did I want this or did some TV marketer tell me that I should want it?
• Do I want to own this, or do I just want to experience it? Will owning this make me happy or will I be just as satisfied by just experiencing it?

You will find that many of your wants are not your own. You’ll also find that there are many things you don’t really want long term; you just want them long enough to experience them.

Congratulations! You’re already ahead of the average person – you know what you want out of yourself over a decade. Most people either have no idea (living with no direction) or are busy chasing someone else’s dreams.

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This will put you one step closer towards your mission, you might not know what that is yet but I am letting you know that you are closer than you where before.

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Finally I will leave you with a quote and some book recommendations.

Book Recommendations:

• As a Man Thinketh by James Allen
• Discipline Equals Freedom by Jocko Willink
• The Feeling Good Handbook by David D. Burns
• Meditations by Marcus Aurelius
• How To Die by Seneca the Younger

Watch Joseph Rodrigues on YouTube, he does incredible breakdowns and MindMaps of some awesome books.

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“A man's mind may be likened to a garden, which may be intelligently cultivated or allowed to run wild; but whether cultivated or neglected, it must, and will, bring forth. If no useful seeds are put into it, then an abundance of useless weed seeds will fall therein, and will continue to produce their kind.”

― James Allen, As a Man Thinketh