The thing that sucks about being young is you feel like you will live forever. You approach each day without urgency because time moves slow. You feel like you have all the time in the world. My Dad always told me that time gets faster as you get older. He was not lying! Your death bed is closer than you think. I went off to college, and the years started to vanish all a sudden. Days and weeks moved so fast it can be hard to keep up. You begin going to funerals for both the young and the old. You get hit with the reality that life will not last forever. There is only so much time to do what you want to if you feel that urgency its a good a thing. You have lean into how to stay focused and avoid all the distractions life will throw at you.
Successful people do everything with purpose and urgency! They don't act as if they are going to live forever.
Death Bed Urgency is a Must for Success ?
Successful people do everything with purpose and urgency! They don't act as if they are going to live forever. When you live life with that type of arrogance, you never feel the need to take action. Think of those websites that are trying to sell you something, and they have the countdown timers. They are usually giving you a special offer that will only last so long. Some of them are complete garbage, and you know it, but the timer gets you. The urgency makes you scared that you will miss out on something.
Your life is the same way. Each day you are losing time on how much longer you have left. How you respond to knowing that is everything. The right response is to realize that you can die at any moment. The second you accept this reality, you start going to work. There is no time for excuses. When you're in school, you waste days and weeks because you figure that time is on your side. Here is what happens.
When The Death Bed Reality Smacks You In The Face ?
I love talking about habits because to stick them out it requires having a bit of grit. Grit is the ability to endure, while you attack a passion. It's a rare ability that few people have. It's not easy to maintain a passion and be able to withstand the roadblocks of life at the same time. Most people will tell you to quit. They will understand why you stopped because doing something exceptional is never easy. When you're young, you think success comes easier than it does. More and more high school students think they will be rich when they are adults. These students become discouraged, knowing how hard it is in reality. There is a clear gap between expectations and reality.
The reason these gaps develop is due to a lack of understanding of habits and the role that they play. Habits are the day to day things you do to produce results. You always rely on your habits, and you fall back to them when your emotions take over. If you are going to close that gap between reality and expectation, your habits must improve. If you want to learn a new language but you don't practice that language daily, you don't have winning habits! Here is what sucks, no matter how much you want it or how positive you think, you still need great habits to succeed.
Live Like You Have 7 Years Left to Live ?
I love framing life like this for people. Seven years left to live is the perfect amount of time. If you act like you have 50 years left, there is no urgency. If you have less then three years, you think you can skate by to your death bed. Seven years is short enough to be urgent but long enough that it's worth going for what you want. Live every day keeping this in mind and as the years tick off; you keep that number at 7.
Even when you are old still act like you have seven years to live, it will keep you feeling young. Having this type of urgency over your head will force you to look for answers. If you have seven years left to live, you want to eat healthily and do all the right things to try and prolong your life. Framing your life like this will change how you approach everything.
The Death Bed Is Powerful ?
The end of your life will force you to reflect on everything you have done. When you think about the end, you only think about what matters. You will not lay on your death bed and thinking of the casual relationship that didn't work out. You will think of all the beautiful relationships that did. There will be no thinking about the money you made, but the lives you changed because you learned how to stay focused. Now zoom back to today.
Let's get back in the moment. The trip to the future should help you to focus on what matters. If you are working a job you hate, get one you love. If you have not found your gift, find it and start working on it. Anytime there are relationships in your life that you want to fix, go and repair them. You have the opportunity to build your life today . So when you are on your death bed, you can be as proud as ever. It starts with your habits and the choices you make daily. When you have good habits they remind you how to stay focused.