Admiration

I’ve always admired strong, independent people who live their lives on their terms. And I aspire to become just like them and want to take more conscious control over where my life is heading. People like Elliot Hulse, Greg Plitt, David Kimmerle, Steve Pavlina, Owen Cook  have set an impressive example. Read my previous blogpost on the The 5 Most Inspirational People Alive (IMO)

On this road I’m taking there are many roadblocks I need to overcome. There are many challenges divided over the 7 areas of life I need to deal with in order to create a happy, fulfilling life for myself.

Truth

To be completely honest, I’ll have to say that I don’t always feel as strong as I want to be. Not always as determined and confident in my own capabilities as I want to be. Other people intimidate and scare me sometimes. Which is actually pretty funny because I’m actually quite big and strong haha :).

But I’ve recognized I can’t make up my lack of internal identity and grounding with external factors like wealth, looks, popularity, fame, whatever. You can fool the world but you can’t fool the person in the mirror.

Creating Identity

To construct you ideal foundation on which you can build your life, It is key you write down for yourself who you are and who you want to be. This is the foundation of your character. 

Only write down internal values. Base your character on solid, unchangeable truths.

Examples;  I’m strong, I’m good, I’m loving, I’m masculine, I’m honest, I’m trustworthy, I’m integer, I’m proud (but make it more specific).

I’ve done this a while ago but it is still changing because I’m constantly introduced to new ideas. Look at your internal identity as a layer of concrete on which you build your life.

Mine is still drying up, it isn’t completely solid yet. And that is exactly why I’m not who I want to be all the time. Now how do we deal with this? How do we make our concrete solid and durable?

Time

The only reason why your concrete isn’t hard nor durable enough to take impacts from your environment is because it hasn’t had the time to settle.

To really sink in and harden itself. Nobody is confident and strong the very minute they set foot on this planet.

Everything is unclear and our environment influences us in many ways as we grow older. It is essential to examine for yourself what you want to perceive as truth and how you want to live your life.

Time also equals experiences. Challenges and struggles will look for the holes in our foundation and will shake it up (depression, fear, sadness, poverty, disability, pain, effort, …). The reason why the people I admire are so strong, determined, confident and focused is because they have experienced struggles and challenges. They’ve had their metal tested.

“You won’t know your worth until you take a hit” – Rise against (satellite)

Challenge

Those “hits” have built their internal identity. That is where character comes into place, because **character is the external observation from others of your internal identity. “**Wow, he is determined!” “That dude is pretty generous” and so forth.

Life mostly offers all these challenges automatically but people tend to live to safe and comfortable that they don’t have any reason to become stronger. So if you see that you could be better, take action to challenge yourself (doing things you are afraid to do, doing things that are meaningful but that you don’t like to do -> get uncomfortable!)

“What could be better is as good as broken” – Greg Plitt

Get your metal tested and take some hits. It’s like a muscle that grows stronger after you’ve trained it. I’m not saying you need to cut of a leg or scar yourself for life but just get out of your comfort zone!

Examples of challenges I’ve been trough or I’m doing at the moment:

• Physical -> Strength Training
• Mental -> Studied math and sciences against my will
• Emotional -> Have dealt with heartbreak (we all have probably)
• Spiritual -> In progress (Mastering internal emotions & choosing truths)
• Wealth -> In progress (Asked my parents to give me less money so I’m forced to create my own income)
• Legacy -> In progress (Planning on making video blogs)
• Energy -> In progress (Travelling to costa rica, Germany and France)

Essence

So what do you need to take away from this? Firstly; Write down who you are and who you want to be. (What is your core identity?) and then challenge yourself in all 7 areas (physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually, wealth, legacy and energy).

Alright that’s all it takes to build a solid character! Now go out and kick yourself out your comfort zone! I hope this post was relevant to you and it has added value to your life! Take care!

Love

Simon