How to create direction in your life as a man

And today we're going to talk about how you as a man can create more direction in your life for yourself, for your family, for your relationship, for your business. As always, before we dive into that, make sure you hit the subscribe button below or the bell notification so that you can get notified when I drop new content, new conversations on how you can be a more effective self led man in the world today. All right, so direction, direction is arguably one of the most important things that you as a man can possess and can cultivate. You know, I see a lot of young men, middle aged men, older men coming to me, coming to our weekends, showing up in our men's groups, Dming me on Instagram, you know, commenting on the videos on YouTube, talking about how they feel lost, talking about how they feel they don't know what to do with their relationship, talking about how they don't know what to do with their career, they don't know how to find purpose. You know, they're not really too sure what to do about their relationship, whether they should stay or they should go, et cetera. All of those things are examples of lacking in direction. Now direction is a superpower for you as a man because it is the thing that provides you with a deeper sense of freedom. It's the thing that women are really deeply drawn to and attracted to. You know, when you as a man can create direction and say, this is what we're doing, this is what I like, this is what I don't want, this is what I'm not willing to tolerate, that provides a very clear path. You know, this is my vision for my life. This is where I'm headed in my career. These are my goals, these are my dreams. This is where, this is where I'm going in the future, right? So there's sort of the big questions in your life about where you're moving and then there's the every single day smaller decisions that you're making that are provid that direction that are moving you towards that goal. All of that is incredibly alluring for a woman in a relationship and for you as a man. It's also satisfying to know that you can provide direction for yourself. You know, I think a lot of creative types are very scattered. You know, I think about myself in the past when I was younger and I took the shotgun approach to almost everything he know is like, what was it called? Like the spray and Pray. You know, it's like I'll just, I'll try and choose a whole bunch of different things and just see which One pans out, you know, I'll just sort of throw shit at the wall and see which one sticks. And whichever one works out, I guess that's the direction that I'll go. And that approach can be fun for a period of time and it can lead to some really cool, spontaneous relationships and situations and you know, career paths, but it might not always bring fulfillment. And so for a lot of men, being able to choose the direction that they're taking their life, their relationship, their family, their career, their business, their finances, that's what we deeply crave because it gives us a sign that we are leading ourself. So if you want to be a more effective, self led man in the world, developing direction is one of the greatest tools in your arsenal. So let's talk about where to begin. Where you begin is by understanding that if you're even asking this question, how do I create direction? I don't know what direction I'm going, I don't know what direction I'm. My career is going, my relationship's going. I don't know. If you're asking that question, then it's likely that you haven't. It's not a bad thing. But it's likely that you've just never actually taken the time to cultivate this skill, to cultivate the actual skill of creating direction in your life. You were probably never shown, you know, maybe you grew up in a household where there wasn't a lot of direction for you as a young man. Maybe you didn't have a father in your life that provided some of that direction or that had direction himself in his own life. That's very common. A lot of young men have grown up in households where their fathers, they just didn't really have direction. Right? It was, or the direction was, you know, get the 9 to 5 job and buy the house and buy the car and just ride it out, you know, until the very end. And that was sort of the direction. Not there's anything bad with that or wrong with that. You know, a lot of those men provided the safety for our generation, for your generation to go off and explore. So there's nothing wrong with that, just to be clear. But if you're asking this question, how do I create direction? It's likely that either you haven't developed that skill or you're in a kind of existential crisis, right? Where your life has lacked meaning and you're questioning what's meaningful to you and how you actually create and connect purpose in your life. And so these bigger sort of Existential questions are probably coming up. So let's start with the basics. All right, so the first thing about creating direction in your life is having a vision, having an aim of what you would like to build and who you want to be. So those are all future based concepts, right? What do I want to build in the world and who do I want to be? So what do I want to build? Well, the first thing is maybe you want to build a family. Well, okay, what would that family require of you? Well, maybe you would need to build a business or a career that provides you with more income on a regular basis. Maybe you need to build more savings or a better financial portfolio. So all of those things are direction, right? And so you can get clear on your vision. If a family is something that you want in the future, if marriage is something that you want in the future, or if you are looking to just be, you know, single for the next 10, 15 years, cool, great. What does that actually look like? You know, do you want to travel the world and date? You know, do you want to date in different countries? Do you want to experience that? So building an idea of what do I actually want to create and build in the future in my relationships, in my career, in my finances, and then outside of that is, who do I want to be in the future? You know, how do I want to look physically and feel physically, who do I want to be in the future, mentally and emotionally, who do I want to be in the future? From a spiritual sense and starting to ask some of these questions, you know, having a vision of the man that you want to step into is incredibly important, right? And if you don't know where to begin with that, look at the things that you are already wanting to change about yourself, right? So let's just say that you have no morning routine whatsoever. And you wake up, you know, sometime between 6:30 and 10:30 in the morning and it's like all over the place. Maybe who you want to be and become is a man who has a more structured morning routine, is a man who is, who gets up, who works out, who has a good body, who's a good mindset and connection to his own body. And that's a direction for you, right? That's who you want to be. That's the man that you want to step into. So start to ask yourself the question, who do I want to be and become physically, mentally, emotionally, sexually, relationally, what do I want to build in my life, you know, relationally, in my career, financially, from a contribution standpoint, what Do I want to build? Maybe from a philanthropic standpoint, what do I want to build? And by asking some of those big questions and really giving yourself permission and challenging yourself to sit with them long enough to get a substantial answer. You know, what happens for most men when they're lacking direction is they get so pissed off immediately, right? And they start to shit on themselves. And it's just like, oh, well, I don't even know what I want to build. And so they start to sit with these larger questions of what do I want to build and who do I want to be? And they get frustrated because an answer doesn't come within the first five minutes. It's like, these are big questions, man. You know, these are really substantial questions and maybe you need to give yourself permission to sit with them longer than five, ten minutes. You know, maybe these are questions that you journal about for days or weeks on ends to kind of flush out the idea of what it is that you want to build or be in the future. Now, the second most important thing about direction is that your decisions build your direction. Your decisions create the direction that you're going. So in effect, what you say yes to and what you say no to all create a sense of where you're going. So if you say yes to a certain job that you really don't want to work at, that you really don't like, that is you creating a direction in your life. When you know, let's just say you say yes to a well paying corporate job, but what you actually want is to build your own business. And you want to, you want to be able to sustain yourself and whatever, in whatever area that business is, if you keep saying yes to that corporate job while saying no to building your own company, then you're creating a direction in your life that you don't want to go. So you need to tune in to the yeses and the no's, the decisions that you're actually making in your life. And you need to start where you are right now. One of the best places to begin with seeing the direction that your life is going is by sitting down and creating just a simple chart of what am I saying yes to and what am I saying no to in my life right now? And writing out as many examples as you possibly can, right? Am I saying yes to a relationship that I don't want to be in? Am I, am I saying yes to, you know, a job or a career or a company that I don't want to work for, or am I saying yes to a business that I'm building, that I'm actually really freaking excited about. You know, am I saying no to things that I, that I actually want to say no to or am I saying no to those things? You know, am I saying no to working out? Am I saying no to a morning routine when I actually want those to be a yes? So just start to break down, down and look at your life where you are right now. Because the best way to know the direction that you're heading in is to look at where you are in your life right now and to be unapologetic about that and to, and to do so without shame, without really critical, harsh judgment, without shitting all over yourself and self deprecating, to just say, you know what, I'm going to take a look at my life, I'm going to see where I am right now and, and I'm going to look at what am I saying yes to that is a absolute hell yes. What am I saying yes to that's maybe a no. And what am I saying no to that maybe should be a yes or absolutely is a non negotiable. It's just a, it's just a hell no. So look at your decisions, look at the decisions that you are making right now in your life and that will tell you where you're going to go. Because if you're saying yes to a career, if you're saying yes to working at a profession that you don't want to be in, then that's the direction that you're going. You know, you'll be there maybe next year, five years down the road, 10 years down the road. And so you need to decide on whether or not that's going to continue to be a yes or a no and then plan accordingly for it. Now the last thing that I want to give you is, sounds simple but is very challenging to actually execute. And I'm going to break it down because I, for me, these forces of life tuning into these forces of life have been incredibly powerful. So the third rule of creating direction in your life is to aim for expansion. Aim for expansion. So the three forces in life that I want you to start to tune into are stagnation, contraction and expansion. So let's start with contraction. Contraction is when we are shrinking, when we are starting to go downwards, when we are getting, getting smaller, when things aren't working the way that we want, when you know your relationship is falling apart, or you know, maybe you invested in the stock market and that's falling apart, or you know, you had Some, you know, healthy habits and routines and those have all fallen apart. All of that represents this sort of contraction that can happen in your life. And there are external forces, right? Life, other people, your job, the stock market, all of those things can affect your contraction, right? So there's, there's some things that you can, that you can do to ward off that contraction. But for the most part, contraction is going to be pressed on you. It's going to be pressed upon you. The second force is stagnation. This is where you as a man become complacent. And for most people within our modern society, stagnation seems to be the. That's the realm of mediocrity, right? That's the realm of domestication. This seems to be the aim for most people, is that they want to get to this comfortable place. But when they get to that comfortable place financially or in their relationship or in their career, what they find is that there's this very brief window of like, ah, this feels great to see. Just have some ease and relaxation. But very quickly, this sense of stagnation starts to set in. You know, it's like, I'm not moving, I'm not enjoying this. And so there's a difference between knowing the difference between this is enough and this is enough for me versus I feel like I'm not moving anywhere. I feel like my career isn't going anywhere. I feel like this relationship hasn't continued to progress or grow or die, deepen in some capacity so that stagnation can seep in quite quickly. And I think that stagnation is arguably one of the most insidious villains within a man's story. You know, it's like always there in the background, tempting you to just keep doom scrolling through social media, keep watching Netflix to have another, you know, handful of potato chips or a few scoops of ice cream or whatever the hell it is. And it forces you into this place of feeling discontent. And very quickly, stagnation leads to contraction. So the aim for you as a man, the direction that you want to move in your relationship, in your health, in your finances, in your mindset, in your body, in every area of your life, is to expand. And that's no small task, because to do so is to constantly and continually put press against the stagnation and the contraction that naturally comes along with life, with relationships, with finances and career and every area of life, right, Your physical body. It's hard to maintain expansion in all areas of your life. And so if you don't know where to begin, Pick one area. Pick one area of your life where you're going to say, okay, I'm going to choose to expand this consciously. Maybe it's your physical body, right? You're like, I'm going to choose to expand physically. So I'm going to create a routine to go to the gym four times a week or five times a week. I'm going to decide I'm going to move my body, you know, every single day, even if it just means, you know, doing 50 or 100 burpees. I'm going to choose to expand physically. I'm going to make that my top priority. So. So I know what expansion takes, so I know what expansion feels like. And when you do that, you begin to create this direction that says, I'm going to move there. You know, I'm going to create this vision of who I want to be physically. I'm going to start to expand and press myself out in that direction. I'm going to choose the habits and the routines and choose daily to move in that direction of expansion, of expanding my body physically, of expanding myself and my ability to lift weights, to lift heavy things, you know, and as you do that, there's this sort of snowball effect that as you start to gain momentum on that front, you feel this invigoration of expansion. You're like, oh, I'm expanding. I can tell I'm making progress. And, you know, and when we make that progress as men, we feel a deep sense of satiation. So aim for expansion. That's the very last cardinal rule. All right, so let me know where in the comments where you feel like you're lacking direction in life, what you got from this video, what you would add to it, what you felt was important. Feel free to hit the like button if you enjoyed it. And as always, thank you. Don't forget to subscribe to the channel so you can get new videos when I drop them. And if you're interested, just click on wherever it is up here or up here. The seven skills that every man should know. If you're wanting to learn more about creating direction in your life, these skills can definitely help you do so.