Subscribe free and start implementing simple systems to drive health, happiness and growth without burnout so you, your people and business can thrive, together.
We live in a time of more freedom and opportunity than ever before.
Yet many of us feel stuck.
Do you ever feel like there are two different parts of you?
One that is full of ideas, goals, passion, and excitement?
But another part of you that seems to take over and hold you back from being the best version of yourself?
If so, let me share with you that:
A, you’re not alone,
B, this is just a sign that you’re a normal, functioning human being, and most importantly,
C, with the right insights and strategies, you can move yourself out of the lane of passivity and into the lane of proactivity, where you are building the life, career, and/or business that reflects your true potential.
Today I’m going to share 3 key strategies that have not only helped me transform my life but also the hundreds of managers, leaders, and business owners I’ve worked with.
Before these systems I was stuck in a job I hated, broke, lacking self confidence and binge drinking every weekend.
Since then I’ve travelled the world, got into the best shape of my life (at almost 40) and built two six figure businesses. I wouldn’t have been able to do - and continue doing - any of that without these systems.
Your mind is hard-wired to screw you over in the modern world. Homo sapiens - that’s us - have been around for approximately 300,000 years. It wasn’t until around 10ish thousand years ago that we ‘figured out’ agriculture.
Before that moment, we lived the hunter-gatherer lifestyle, never knowing where the next meal was coming from - or if it was coming at all - and being on constant guard because so many things could potentially kill us.
So, for 290,000 years - or 97% of our time on this planet - our minds evolved to survive scarcity and a threatening environment.
Not being in the hunter gatherer environment accounts for less than 3% of our minds evolution time.
The way we live today is, of course, completely different to 10’000 years ago and even the lives of our grandparents.
We started becoming ‘hyper-connected’ around 2007 when the first iPhone was released, 17 years ago at the time of this newsletter - which accounts for 0.006% of our existence on this planet.
You live in a time of unprecedented freedom and opportunity, but you are walking around with a mind that has been conditioned to survive the wild by convincing you that there’s not enough stuff to go around and doing anything new brings with it a serious risk of death.
If you want to thrive in your life, career, or business, you have to be willing to choose growth over comfort. You have to do new things, take risks, and fail in order to grow and achieve meaningful things.
If you’re passive - like society, school, and probably your parents taught you to be - that fear-driven, anxiety-reaping, comfort-seeking, hunter-gatherer part of your mind, with 290,000 years of calibration, is going to dictate your life and make you, at best, unfulfilled, and at worst, completely miserable.
Now you understand the problem - which is important - let’s go through how to recalibrate your mind for success and happiness - quickly.
I work a lot with business owners, leaders, and managers. What I’ve learned over the past 5 years is that the process that works to calibrate our minds for success and fulfilment is EXACTLY the same as the process that works for businesses and teams to recalibrate for success and fulfilment.
So, you can read these steps as an individual wanting to improve your life, or as a leader wanting to improve your team/business. Trust me, it’s the same process.
To shift out of passivity and into a growth mindset lifestyle that enables you to pursue your potential, you have to get clear on your vision and values.
Many of us struggle with this concept because we are instantly met with the ‘I have no idea what my vision is or should be’ thought. This is again as true for individuals as it is for teams and businesses.
To get through this common mental sticking point, you should first get clear on your values. Your values tell you what is genuinely most important to the highest version of you.
Once you are clear on your values, the right vision - one that genuinely excites and motivates you - will start to become clear to you.
Without being clear on your values, you run the risk of subconsciously creating a vision and goals to impress others or fit in.
The pursuit of this vision won’t genuinely fulfil you, which you will realise as you lose motivation down the line. Like the university student doing a course they have no passion for in order to please their parents.
It’s normal to adapt your vision and goals as you make progress in life, but by being clear on your values, these changes become more ‘course corrections’ instead of huge shifts.
It’s also common to feel weird about spending time thinking about and getting clear on your values. The reason for this is that you’ve been conditioned by society from a young age to focus on fitting in, not on being your unique and authentic self.
I believe the only way to be genuinely happy and fulfilled in life is to live a life true to your values.
Therefore, committing time to discovering and refining them is one of the most important exercises you can partake in.
1. Discover your core values
Don’t try to be a perfectionist with this exercise. Think 7/10. If you are 7/10 satisfied with what you come up with, that’s good enough. After that, you can refine to get that score higher. If you try to get to a 10/10 now, it will take too long, and you’ll lose motivation.
The end goal of this exercise is to have 3-5 words or short statements that summarise what is most important to you in life.
Each of the values will have a short description after. I have done this with countless business owners, leaders, and managers.
It serves as the foundation for meaningful progress and a better life. With these values in place, you have a guidance system for decision-making and goal-setting for the rest of your life.
This letter isn’t about me, but for transparency, here are mine:
Live Minimal:
I keep my life and live minimalist so that I maintain my freedom and time.
Good Karma:
By doing my best to do the right thing, I limit my bad and increase my good karma.
Learn and Grow: I commit to using the opportunities, freedom, and resources I have to continually develop and help others.
Make a Difference: I use the freedom, opportunity, and skills I have been gifted with to make a positive impact on the lives of others.
I have been working to hold myself accountable to these values since I first discovered them 10 years ago. Now let’s find yours.
Your Go
*You have a choice here, you can go through these exercises as you’re reading or, as I prefer, you can go read through the full letter then use the checklist at the end to complete all of the exercises after.
1. Think about the people you admire in life. Try and establish a top three, and once you have, write down what qualities it is about those people that you admire. Write them down.
2. Think about people that annoy you in life. Again, think about the traits it is about those people that rub you up the wrong way. Write them down in a separate list.
3. Now, visualise 90-year-old you looking back on your life. You have gone about your life exactly how you wanted to and feel a sense of pride as you reflect on your life. What qualities are you most proud of? Write them down in a third list.
Now, looking at these three lists (two positives, one negative), spend a few minutes getting clear on what stands out to you the most.
If you have multiple words that have similar meanings, group them together.
For example, fun, loving, and kind could all be grouped into one, as could wise, intelligent, and learned.
Now come up with your top 3-4. You’re going to be tempted to write more, but don’t do that.
Just because something isn’t in the top 4 doesn’t mean it’s not important to you. But when everything is important, nothing is important.
Remember, you can adapt the list over time.
Finally, add a short description for each of your top words - no more than 15 words.
You now have a guidance system for your life. I recommend putting your values somewhere they are easy to access and you will see them daily.
For me, they are the wallpaper on my phone. You can do this yourself on Canva or pay a small fee for someone to turn them into a wallpaper for you on Fiverr.com.
2. Crafting A Vision
You don’t have to have a perfect vision for your life. Life changes a lot, and what we want today might be different from what we want next year.
But it’s important that you have at least a rough idea about what you want your life to look like in the future.
An artist can only create a painting once they have the intention to create the painting.
They may not know exactly what they want to create when they start, but they will have an idea.
The creation will evolve as the artist goes through the creative process, but they will have started with an idea. A painter doesn’t set out to paint a landscape and finish with a portrait.
This is how a vision works for you.
Without putting some intention behind your life, you won’t create, you’ll just live the life society and others want you to.
But with a vision, you create intention, that intention leads to action, and as you engage in those actions, your authentic life vision will become clearer and clearer.
Think anywhere between 3-5 years into the future - whichever feels more natural for you. If all things go perfectly from this moment forward, what does your life look like then?
If you’re not very confident yet, and thinking about what you do want feels challenging, then think about what you don’t want in your life. Write down what you wish you didn’t have to do and what frustrates you. This will start to give you some clarity into what you do want.
Also, remember to use your values for this exercise. What you write should be aligned to your values and thinking about your values should inspire ideas in you.
This is a process you will go through regularly, and you should get comfortable right now with the fact that the things you put down will change.
It’s not important that what you write is right; it’s important that you have something to work towards.
I’ll share with you one aspect of my vision that has gone through many iterations, you’ll notice how the iterations get smaller over time.
A) 15 years ago - Not have to do a job I don’t enjoy.
B) 10 years ago - Do meaningful work that helps others.
C) 7 Years ago - Own my own business and help others (gym).
D) 3 years ago - Own a business without a physical location (consultancy).
E) 8 months ago - Own a business that can scale without being reliant on my time (digital products business).
At each stage, I have made an improvement in my life driven by my vision but then found there’s something about that improvement that doesn’t work for me.
For example, it was great owning a gym, but I hated being tied to a location.
If I had just got frustrated and said ‘this vision stuff is crap,’ I’d be back on the hamster wheel.
Instead, you iterate. You look at the change you made, look at what’s not working for you, and make the next improvement.
Problems replace problems, and that becomes a beautiful thing as you begin to realise it’s not the destination that makes you happy, but the journey itself.
You now have two systems to guide your life out of passivity and into fulfilling growth: your values and your vision.
Look at and think about them every day. Experiment with them and refine them, but don’t ignore them.
As you get clearer on your values and vision, you will discover a fire of energy burning in your stomach that you forgot you had.
This is good, but we now need to make sure you don’t run into the Passion Problem. That is, where you get so driven for the future that you sacrifice your life in the now and get burnt out.
If you took all of the people in a country like the UK, every one of them would fall into one of three categories.
Most would fall into Zone 1 - Comfortably Uncomfortable.
This is where they aren’t fulfilled with their lives, but that subtle discomfort is hidden behind comfort. The lack of fulfilment in life and subconscious awareness that you are capable of so much more is drowned out with entertainment, intoxicants, and keeping busy.
A smaller but still big group fall into Zone 2 - Unsustainable Growth.
This is the category you risk falling into after getting clear on your values and vision. This group of people are so passionate about what they do or driven to create a better future that they neglect their lives in the now. They make progress and do great work, but they are on a path to burnout, and when they hit burnout, they will fall back into the first comfortably uncomfortable category.
Finally, a tiny amount of the population sit in Zone 3 - Enjoyable Growth.
These are the people that have cracked the code. They are vision and values-driven, always making progress towards their goals whilst enjoying their lives. They aren’t superhuman or more talented than anyone else; they just nailed two things most others don’t: Mindset & Systems.
Mindset
It’s impossible to give you a perfect mindset checklist that will enable you to be in Zone 3, but here are the common principles I have uncovered through personal discovery, working with others, studying the best, and reading:
- An understanding that true happiness is found in the fulfilment that comes from helping others.
- Not being afraid of failure, but seeing ‘failure’ as an essential stepping stone on the way to ‘success.’
- A love for the process, not the end goal. It’s the journey, not the destination, that makes you happy.
- Not judging yourself on your results, but on how you compose yourself.
- Being able to accept and process emotions without letting them dictate your actions (emotional intelligence).
- As we have covered already, being values and vision-driven.
- A level of faith that doing the right thing will lead to results.
I should mention at this point that the presence of stress when moving towards your goals isn’t a bad thing. Being in the Enjoyable Growth zone isn’t about getting rid of stress; without stress, there is no growth. If you are highly stressed, instead think about how you can better handle the stress not just get rid of it.
Whenever I or a client is considering dropping a goal, I always ask the same question:
A) Are you thinking of dropping this because you genuinely don’t want it?
Or
B) Are you thinking of dropping this because you’re lacking self-confidence?
If the answer is A, then the goal is the problem, and it can be dropped.
If the answer is B, then your mindset is the problem, and you should keep at it.
*If the answer is somewhere in between that needs to be explored, i.e. if a goal is clearly unrealistic and impossible but you are passionate about it then it needs to be adapted not dropped.
Most chronic stress comes from a lack of self-belief and imposter syndrome.
This leads to a constant sense of urgency fuelled by the thoughts that it’s all going to go wrong or that you’re going to get found out for being a fraud.
Reading a list of positive mindset attributes won’t fix that.
What will is having the right systems in place that force you to work and move towards your goals in a sensible and sustainable manner.
As you adhere to these systems over time and make progress towards your goals without overworking, the subconscious part of your mind telling you you have to work crazy hours to be successful and avoid catastrophe gets overridden.
Here’s an interesting insight for you: Burnout is a form of laziness.
Working in a way that leads to incredible results without getting burnt out isn’t hard. It’s just different from what you are used to.
You have to be strategic.
You have to spend time planning.
You have to spend time prioritising certain goals and say no to others.
You have to spend time learning, reviewing, and reiterating.
The reality is that most people would rather carry on doing what they are already good at and what they already know - working hard - because in the short term, that’s easier than change - even though they know it’s leading to poor health and burnout.
If you are willing to change, and you do have a genuine desire to live in the Enjoyable Growth Zone, where you make constant progress towards your goals whilst enjoying your life, the following two proven systems are for you.
1. OKR
OKR stands for Objectives and Key Results. It’s an iteration of the goal-setting method most of you have heard of called SMART goals. SMART is an acronym for:
Specific
Measurable
Achievable
Relevant
Time-Bound
But there’s a problem with SMART goals.
You can have as many as you like. When you’re feeling motivated and driven - like after Christmas when you commit to completely overhauling your life next year - you’re overly optimistic and set too many goals.
This leads to overwhelm, which leads to you dropping all of your goals, which leads to you telling yourself a narrative that you’re no good at achieving goals, so what’s the point in trying? Bad.
Turns out this isn’t just a personal issue but a business problem too.
In the book Measure What Matters by John Doerr, there are numerous case studies of famous businesses (including IBM, Google, and YouTube) that broke through growth plateaus by reducing the number of goals they had and focusing on the few that mattered most.
Luckily, the OKR process is openly shared. I now use this system to help businesses, teams, and individuals make faster, better progress with less effort.
Here’s how you can use it for your goals:
Considering your values and vision, you’re going to create 3 one-year objectives (goals).
Your goals should be non-specific motivational statements.
Objective Examples:
- Get into great shape.
- Transform my financial situation.
- Launch my own business.
- Be a great parent.
- Be a great partner.
Remember, you can only choose three, so prioritise what is most important and most aligned with your vision and values.
Now you are going to apply 1-3 Key Results to each objective.
You do this by answering the question, ‘as measured by’.
Objective & Key Results Example:
Objective: Get into great shape
As measured by:
- Lose 14 pounds, weigh 11 stone down from 12.
- Fit in size 32” jeans.
- Run 5k in under 25 minutes.
What you don’t do is write a task list. For example:
Objective: Get into great shape
As measured by:
- Going to the gym 5 times a week.
- Eating chicken and rice 5 times a week.
They aren’t outcomes; they are tasks, but you’ll want to write these instead because there is less fear of failure when you write tasks over outcomes.
It’s common to get stuck when you’re trying to do this with relationships. Just keep it simple and measurable.
For example:
Objective: Be a great dad
As measured by:
- My personal score of being a great dad up from 5 (current) to 9.
You can create sub-measures for your ‘great dad score’ that contribute to the overall score, i.e. quality time with daughter/son, emotional connection with daughter/son, etc.
When you are clear on the result you want to achieve, the right tasks present themselves.
I would advise you to break your yearly Goal and Key Results into Quarterly or Monthly Goals and Key Results to make them more manageable and attainable.
You can use the following tool to plan for that.
2. Cadence Calendar
This second system is a surprisingly simple tool I developed for both myself and the hundreds of managers we train on personal and professional development in corporates.
We noticed that one of the things busy, focused professionals struggled with most was making time for themselves and the things that matter.
This led to a lot of overworking and a lack of progression in important areas at work and at home - or more bluntly put - being busy fools.
There is a phenomenon known as Parkinson’s Law, which states that tasks expand to fill the time you allow them.
What’s interesting is how the quality of work you do towards a task drops when you allow it too much time. When you give a task less time, you work more effectively and get it done quicker, often to a higher standard.
This explains why so many companies see productivity increases when implementing the four-day work week.
Most people don’t think they are doing a good enough job, so they procrastinate and put work off (because nobody likes working when they don’t think what they are doing is good).
But, of course, the work still needs to be done, so you end up rushing to get that work finished either late in the day or, worse, in your own personal time.
We limit and slowly override this with the Cadence Calendar.
The Cadence Calendar is a one-page habit planner that forces you to prioritise your life and important but not urgent tasks first. I’ve put an outline of it below.
You redo the Cadence Calendar once every 12 weeks.
Each time you stick to it, you build new habits into your life.
This tool also hacks Parkinson’s Law. By creating non-negotiable tasks daily, weekly, and monthly, your mind puts pressure on you to get your work done in a way that doesn’t interfere with your non-negotiables.
You can be creative with what you put on your Cadence Calendar, but if you are a chronic over worker, here are my suggestions to get you started:
Daily:
- Three healthy meals.
- No work after 5 pm.
Weekly:
- 3 x 60-minute gym sessions.
- Night out with partner or friends.
Monthly:
- Review vision and values.
- Review OKRs and assess progress.
Quarterly:
- Get away for a weekend.
- Turn yearly OKRs into Quarterly OKRs.
To ensure you stick to your Cadence Calendar, print it off and stick it somewhere you can see it. If you are in a relationship, sharing it with your partner and getting them to fill it out with a different colour pen is a great way to make it fun and hold each other accountable.
Don’t be tempted to add more than two entries into each box. This is by design to stop you over committing.
If you got this far, then you are clearly invested in becoming the best, highest potential version of yourself. Congratulations - you are already investing in yourself and ahead of the masses.
You’ve taken a lot of information in and done a lot of thinking with this letter, so I have no doubt you’re going to be mentally fatigued at this point. Here’s an important note to finish on: what you have learnt here will only work if you take action.
Doing everything we have covered in this letter is going to require effort, but not doing what we have covered is going to lead to something a lot harder in the long run: regret. Regret that you didn’t live the life you could have; regret that you didn’t even try to reach your potential.
So here’s what I want you to do. Right now, do nothing other than finish reading this. Then, slot in 45 minutes into your calendar for either tomorrow or some time on the weekend. Slot this time in when your energy is good - for many of us, that’s between 9 and 11 in the morning.
Copy and paste this list into your calendar booking or onto a piece of paper and work through it in that session:
- Values x 3-4 with short description - 6+/10 satisfied.
- 3-5 year vision - 5+/10 satisfied.
- 3 x 1-year Objectives with 1-3 measurable results for each.
- Cadence Calendar completed for the next 12 weeks.
- Review date for Cadence Calendar review set in calendar 12 weeks into the future.
That’s it.
This is your guidance system to break free from societal conditioning, recalibrate your mind, and start living your life on your terms towards your highest potential, fulfilment, and happiness.
Thank you for investing in yourself and reading.
Till next time,
Mike
I am a best selling author, business owner and consultant. As a previous military intelligence analyst, resident with monks and burnt out business owner, I now help business owners, leaders and managers create cultures of health, happiness and high performance without burnout.