Have you ever just wanted to go on an adventure and do literally everything you have ever wanted to do in life? Some might say that this is impossible and that it's only a dream. I'm here to say that not only is that the furthest thing from the truth, but you can do it without having to sell your soul to Gozer or Zuul (if you don't know who they are then you really need to see the movie "Ghostbusters").
There is a man by the name of Nick Winter who wrote a book all about how you can do just this. Now before you tell me, "Chris, my life is so busy that I have no time to read a novel!" hear me out. The title of Nick's book is "The Motivation Hacker" and it is only 136 pages. It took me a little over a week and a half to finish the book (and that's only reading for 20 minutes a day). Trust me when I say that It's hard to put the book down. There are sections of the book that dive deep into hacking your own motivation so that you can make the most out of your day. The rest of the book goes into how Nick pulled off what he called the Three Month Challenge.
During the Three Month Challenge, Nick decided he would set goals that he always wanted to do and he literally worked his butt off in order to complete them. For those of you who might be interested in the book I will say that you won't find any spoilers in this article. The goals that he put into the book are as follows:
- Run a Startup company.
- Launch an iPhone app.
- Learn 3,000 new Chinese words.
- Train to run a four-hour marathon from scratch.
- Learn to skateboard
- Write a book
- Help build a cognitive testing website
- Give two perfect best man speeches
- Increase bench press by 60 lbs.
- Read 20 books
- Go skydiving
- Learn to throw knives
- Drop 5K time by five minutes
- Learn to lucid dream
- Go on 10 Romantic dates with girlfriend
- Have meaning conversations with 100 people
- Increase general happiness
Did anybody see how "write a book" was on the list. If you're making the connection then you're right. Nick Winter wrote "The Motivation Hacker" in just three months. Now before you start telling me that it's impossible to do that, just read the book. Nick goes into every detail of how he decided to attack every single one of his goals. One of which was pledging over $7,000 dollars to the website Beeminder.
Beeminder is a website that allows you to track your goals. Cool right?!? The kicker is the first time you don't complete your goal they give you a warning and ask for credit card information. At this point, you can decide that Beeminder is not for you and leave. However, if you decide to stay and mess up again they charge you money.
Nick notified the founders of Beeminder about what he was doing; and that he was going to pledge over $7,000 dollars that he would complete the book in three months. My initial reaction was that this guy was crazy. Why would he put $7,000 dollars on the line just to write a book in 3 months. However, when I read the book, I started to realize that if you tell someone that you want to become a writer that might motivate you. You might even be start writing some articles. The problem is that you are relying only on your willpower. This can be related to every single idea you have ever had. Ideas like "I want to be a professional (whatever)!" "I want to be a dancer!" "I want to run for class president!" That's great to have ideas like that, but people rarely act upon them.
Now imagine you tell someone that you want to be a dancer and at that exact moment every cent that you have ever saved up is in jeopardy. The only thing you have to do is dedicate a certain amount of hours a week for three months to learning how to dance. You could take a class, get lessons, go to the club, or even watch instructional YouTube videos! Don't you think that with all that money at stake you would find time in your "busy" schedule to dedicate just an hour a day? That is exactly how Beeminder works, and that is exactly what Nick Winter did. In the book, he even gives a schedule of his entire day.
The thing that made me laugh out loud was that for most parts of this three-month challenge Nick slept for eight hours. He would go to bed at 10 p.m. and wake up at 6 a.m. Think about this the next time you have a "busy" day. Take time out of your day and dedicate it to something you want to do. For me, I always used to read when I was younger. Now I dedicate at least 20 minutes a day to reading. Start taking back your life and do something fun!
Until next week!
