Dr. Ben Adkins of Fearless Social runs a call every December, “the Better Life Sequence,” to help people look forward and powerfully create their coming year. As he was sending around the replay for the 2016 call, he accidentally linked the 2015 call as well. I think he must have done this just for me.

The point of that call: You Must Have a “Why.” And money just doesn't cut it, especially for people trying to go it on their own. You have to address that Why in five areas: Family, Faith, Health, Work andHobbies. For each of these you should set three goals. For each goal, you must state why.

“Why is this so Stinking Important?”

In Ben's words:

• Something in your life is keeping you from being who you want to be.
• That you don’t have what you want is not because you lack information.
• It’s probably not a lack of action either.
• What’s missing is organization, focus & planning.
• We are not built to be good at these things.

So Why is this Really so Stinking Important?

Because we don’t know what makes us happy. We spin our wheels at all sorts of stuff not connected to what makes us happy. When we understand what makes us happy, we can actually set up our lives to create and achieve those things. We get the opportunity to make sure that we are honoring the things that make us happy, and scheduling those. When we do that, we actually wake up and know what needs to get done each day, and we are excited to do it because we know where it's going.

So here are mine:

• Family

  • Visit with three of my cousins: Because I miss them and I want to be more connected to my family.
  • Outing with Sharleen once a week: Because a relationship is either growing or dying, and we have a lot more fun when we are growing ours.
  • Outing with family at least once a month: Because they are growing up too fast and if we don’t make the moments now, we will miss them.

• Faith

  • Landmark: Connect with humanity’s good side, time with Sharleen
  • Altucher Podcasts: Remind me of bigness of people and what we can create
  • Political Activism: Remind me there is another conversation, and that all change starts with just one person.
• Health
  
  • 200 lbs. (91 kg.): Feel Good about myself; believe I can; be faster
  • Sugar, smoke and Coffee free: Live longer, be thinner, no headaches, indicator that I’m excited about life.
  • Politics: Being connected makes me feel better
• Work
  
  • 10k a month: Know that I can; Generate Belief in Myself
  • Help five people build their business: Validate that I can; make a difference
  • Buy three new pieces of Real Estate: Because I love to build stuff
• Hobbies
  
  • Politics: Because I want to rock the world and turn this into my profession at some point.
  • Finish Alfred’s Book 2, Guitar Book 1, Accordion Book 2, Mandolin 1: Bring Music into the World, get good at something, demonstrate that a little work consistently, over a long time will make something much better.
  • Build our House: I like to create and build.

Another Reason Why

The idea behind all this is that if you know your Why, and you focus on that, relentlessly, you will generate abundance. So what about all the crap you have to do that you don't want to. Well not doing that is another great reason Why. This suggests two more list that you should make. And they answer the question “What is the stuff I hate to do?” and “To what do I need to say no?”

The idea here is that when you know how to manage your own affairs, and you have your life organized, you can also organize so that someone else take over the items you don't want to waste your time on. For me, the things I least like to do are laundry, cleaning dishes, shopping, dealing with my accountant, and throwing stuff out. But worse are the things I don't mind - or even like - doing, but that add no value, like getting lost in technical matters only to find I've spent the whole day on low value items. To these, I must say no, or at least settle on the simplest solution, like using page-builders or systems rather than spending a lot of time learning to code web pages, which I'll never do at a professional level anyway.

It's a powerful exercise, and one I highly recommend you complete as soon as possible. For some of you, this will be easy, and the next steps will be obvious. For others, like me, this will require a shift in the way things are done. For me, it'll take something to break this down into winnable weekly and daily chunks. Harder will be saying no to the things that distract (like e-mail, facebook, and the next thing I just have to know about or try.)

And if you don't have a regular job or schedule with a built in accountablity system, and you want to win, you'll need an alternate structure. This could be a coach, or a regular check-in with someone else. You just need to look at your promises this week, and if they are not in alignment with what you said you want, adjust your course.

A Note on Faith

This is the Domain I had the most trouble with. Here's Dr. Ben's take:

This is not about any particular deity.
It's about your connection with the universe. It's about what gets you locked in and centered and believes there is something more to this world than just what's going on inside your own head.

What's going on inside of you that makes you believe that there's more to this world than what is going on just inside of your own head.
What is it about the world that is bigger than me?

or if you are familiar with Landmark, the question is what possibility for being would call you powerfully into action?

So I wish you a Happy 2016. If you'd like any help creating it, here's the button:

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