The quality of your decisions determines the quality of your life.
But there's one decision that determines all other decisions.
For myself, I made this meta-decision when I was young. I can't remember exactly when – it had been on my mind since I was 10-12 years old – but there was a distinct point in time where I knew that the default life wasn't for me. I despised it with my entire being.
The single most important decision I made was to not work all day on something I hate for an abysmal amount of money while yelling at the TV about politics and sports. To have all of my time sucked up by work, energy drained by tasks I didn't choose, and money disappear to bills I didn't even know I had to pay.
Many people ruin their lives because they can't make that decision, let alone any decision. The average person is indecisive, and they don't see the massive problem with that.
You're hurling down the wrong path
When you're born, you're put on the default path.
Like a freight train hurling down tracks laid by a mixture of generations prior to you. You've accumulated 20 years of momentum by the time you exit your teenage years. Survival patterns cemented into your mind. Programming that influences your decisions. The thing is, this is a very rudimentary operating system for life. Go to school, get a job, retire. There is nothing extraordinary about that. You will never reach your potential unless you make a bold and deliberate decision to shift the train tracks.
The decision of all decisions is to reject the default path.
To answer the call to adventure. To finally begin writing the first chapter. To leave the tutorial and start level one.
That's when your life starts.
The outcome of your life is determined by a series of 10-12 bold decisions. A dozen train track shifts. And if you don't make those shifts, you get stuck with a dull life. You stall out. That's the massive trap of modern life.
Imagine being in a job you hate.
You can make the decision to never put up with that again, or you can remain indecisive and wake up two years later without a single change in your life. In fact, it probably would have gotten much worse during that time.
The problem with indecisiveness is that by not making a decision, you let others make decisions for you. This is life. You have to do something. You have to move in some kind of direction every day, but most aren't in control of the trajectory.
Let's call this the "idle state," when your brain is on and functional but not processing anything meaningful. You're doing something, but you're not really doing anything. You hate it, but not enough to change it.
You silently value mediocrity
Your decisions reveal your values.
As much as you'd like to think you have noble values, I want you to take an in depth look at what you do.
If you go out every weekend, you value social status. If you order takeout and throw on Netflix every night, you value comfort. If you work a job, you value security.
Values signal what are important to you. The good life stems from the concentration of force toward the right values. It's completely fine if you value status or comfort or security, but be honest with yourself. Where is most of your energy going? Toward what values? What resources are you spending toward a better life, if any?
Most people are pouring their time, energy, and money down the drain. The currencies they can spend toward a better life disappear the moment they appear. They will look back years from now (that's a lie… many people never self-reflect) and realize that even though they feel tired and near burnout, they've accomplished nothing meaningful.
If you want to change the trajectory of your life, you need to become disgusted with this fact. You need to become brutally aware that almost everything you do is going to waste. You need to feel that pain in your bones, hold your negative and positive potential in your mind at the same time, and watch the positive prevail.
Sit with this question
Take the next 7 days to only think about this question:
Where will my life end up if I keep making the same decisions?
Chances are, the answers you arrive at won't be pretty.
To make this even more tangible, pull out a piece of paper. Do it now. Don't ignore this because you're just wasting time reading some internet wise guy. Then, write down every single action you took today, and every other routined and repetitive actions you will take throughout this week.
To take it even further, go to a public space. A grocery store. A fast food restaurant. A place that has an abundance of ordinary people. Just watch. Observe them. While I'm sure they're kind people, do you want to end up like them? Do you want that dead look in your eyes? That slow and tired strut? As much as you'd like to convince yourself you don't, that's the life you are heading toward if you remain indecisive.
It may take 7 days or 365, but if you observe long enough, and are truly honest with yourself, you won't have any other option but to radically change the values that influence your decision-making.
Through the simple act of observing the masses, you will realize that conscious health, business, and self-actualization are non-negotiable.
A life without mistakes is death
Wrong decisions are better than no decision.
But there are so many decisions to make.
Should you work on your career or work on spirituality? Should you learn to code or learn to market? Should you find your purpose or find a partner? Should you do the carnivore diet or the sugar diet?
We're in a weird spot in history where there have never been more options to change your life to the point where you get overwhelmed and choose none of the above.
The reality is, it doesn't matter which option you choose, as long as you choose one, even if the outcome is catastrophic. Choosing to become decisive means that you don't make one decision and call it a day. Instead, you continue making decisions from a place of greater awareness.
There are a series of decisions I've made in my life that others would have thought were stupid, crazy, or not worth making.
Almost 5 years ago, I was sleeping on a floor mat in a guest room because I didn't want to spend the money to move out of my ex's place. I was cheap and overly frugal. I was working on my side business at the time, and I decided to say "fuck it," get rid of everything I owned except for a bad of clothes, and move to Mexico with a friend I had met online.
2 weeks in, I felt as if I had made the greatest mistake of my life. I hated it there. Paradise sucked. I needed a home base. My business was starting to gain traction, and I could not grow it with the distractions of Playa Del Carmen.
So I made another decision. I called my friend back in Arizona and asked if he wanted to get an apartment with me. But not just any apartment, this was a place that cost 2x more than anything I've been able to afford in my life. I was confident that I was the type of person who could make my business work under that immense amount of pressure.
Turns out, those 12 months were the most I've ever grown in my life. I was the most lean, calm, financially stable, and alive I've ever been. With 2 bold decisions, my life had radically changed. I was a completely different person.
By now, I had seen the vast power in making mistakes. In figuring out what I don't want in life. Any "crazy" idea was no longer crazy, it was the catalyst for anything good in life. Moving to a different country? A big risk, but if you're a decisive person, you can move back whenever you want because you can decide to improve your skill set and make more money. Decisiveness changes your perception of what's possible..
When that apartment lease ended, my now editor and I moved to Texas with Dakota Robertson and JK Molina – friends I had made on Twitter. When Dakota had to leave because of visa issues after 6 months, that's when the "mistakes" really started to come into play.
We moved back to Arizona, leased an even more expensive place. A year later, I bought my first home, and again, deeply regretted it. But this time I was down $1.1 million instead of a few thousand. I didn't want to be pinned down this early in life. I didn't even care to live in that location. 2 months later, I put the condo back on the market. Thankfully, I only lost about a hundred thousand after all was said and done. Painful, but well worth it, as I had gained the priceless clarity of what I want.
That's only the beginning of my mistakes. I'm in the process of another great "mistake" right now. This time it's $3 million down, but that was the cost of clarity, and that clarity can make it all back in a fraction of the time.
The more bold decisions you make, the more mistakes you make, leading to more experience, ensuring that each decision makes a less impactful mistake over time, honing you in on success like a ballistic missile.
A life without mistakes is death.
When you're ready, here's how I can help you further:
- The full one-person business launchpad course is now available on the paid version of this substack
- Read the last letter on 'the death of thoughtful creation' here
- Watch the my latest YouTube video on how to become the main character of your life