Cut Through Each Day With A Vengeance

Live your life as a man should. Never again wake up uninspired, but possess from now until your last day the searing white hot ambition necessary to become nothing short of your very best.
A man owes it to himself and as a matter of virtue to develop his potential to the fullest extent. What better way to justify your life than going all out to become the very best you can be. Unshackle yourself, throw caution to the wind and experience life at its fullest. Add tremendous meaning to your remaining days by digging deep and pursuing your innate and rightful destiny.
As fate would have it, a few men will have their challenge to greatness thrust upon them. For some this will be a gift and for others a curse. Most of us however, will have to reflect deeply on our true nature to find our path to glory. It will take us some time to thrash about, get fed up with mediocrity and then finally plant our stake in the ground with an absolute fierceness of purpose.
Every man born of sound mind has a measure of greatness purposefully engineered within. Most, however, will succumb to our broken world and either shrink back from their potential or follow the path of shallow distraction and tarnish their souls.
The natural order will allow for a man at any point in his life to hit the brakes, pivot hard and pursue his rightful and glorious potential. But it will never be easy, the challenges will never cease and many of those closest to him will attempt to hold him back.
Despite these obstacles, there is still no better and more thrilling manner in which to live. For when a man without a doubt discovers his true path and then begins the chase, he will begin living on a higher plane. He will sleep fast and develop a tireless capacity for learning and accomplishment. Energy and verve will become his essence. And a purpose and peace of mind will fuel each and every day.
Make the leap gentlemen. Reflect on your inherent greatness, reveal your Ultimate Self and then cut through each day with a vengeance.
Establish Your Code
Establish your Code for life. This is your foundation. It is your Life Mission and the Code by which you will live each day —your Purpose. No matter what life throws at you, there will always be an answer. It will keep you on track, raise the level of your game and provide clarity when the fog of life rears its ugly head once again.
Your Code is not a goal or result that is quantifiable, but a way of life. It is not something that can ever be fully attained or perfected, but a set of standards to constantly pursue and improve upon.
“I will pursue virtue, excellence and quality” is the Code by which this author lives his life. Virtue refers to ethic, excellence refers to process and quality refers to outcome.
What this means to me is that I will avoid shallow distractions and anything that will put me at odds with the Creator. I am not a philanthropist and certainly no do-gooder but I will do my part simply by pursuing my very best and looking after my own. I will also conduct myself at the highest level possible in all my endeavors both personal and professional. And I will always work to finish what I start and produce an outcome of the highest quality.
At the end of the day, if I’ve held on strong to my Code then that’s all I can ask. If it wasn’t enough, there are many days more to come where I can pare away and break down whatever obstacle is in the way.
Do yourself a favor and establish your Code. Write it down. Make it strong and true and begin your path to living at a higher plane.

Create a Life Vision
Stop what you are doing and face yourself with courage as soon as possible. Set aside some serious time to focus inward and create your Life Vision. This is the dream lifestyle and bold set accomplishments you would like to achieve. Never mind what anyone else wants or thinks. Make it your own. Now you will have something to grab on to. Whereas your Code is a standard, your Vision is a sharply defined lifestyle and a set of thrilling goals.
Set pen to paper and make it the canvas upon which you will design your life. As long as it is consistent with your Life Mission anything goes. Don’t just consider what you think you can achieve, but strike out with boldness and dare to include those things that will send a chill down your spine and put a smile on your face.
Realize that most men will lead an uninspired life. And most of them will also never once take an afternoon alone to search their soul and create a Life Vision. Distinguish yourself from the masses and design your future with purpose and passion.
Post your Vision on the wall where you will see it each morning and put your mind to work. You now have your Code to guide you and a Life Vision as fuel and inspiration. You are miles ahead of your old self. Put the magic of possibility to work and start taking action; it will light a fire under you day after day. And then use that fire to burn bright and make each new day your field of play.
Choose Your One Thing
Select one item from your Life Vision and make it your One Thing. This is the one achievement that will light you up like no other. It will become the driving force in your life. It is the goal that will carry you all the way to the Promised Land.
Dare to pursue something that will be a jaw dropper. Make it something that will transform your life. Keep it to yourself if you choose, but write it down as a separate posting. Begin to live free from the fear of failure and use the spine tingling nature of your ambition on this one to drive you to a higher level.
If you’re smart your One Thing will also carry most of your Life Vision along for the ride. For example, becoming financially independent in ten years would certainly provide the time and opportunity to follow many other pursuits. A man free from the need to trade his time for pay is a man with a wide open future that can craft each day as he pleases.
Deep down every man has his One Thing. But most have let life get in the way and buried it to shield them from regret. It’s very easy to stay busy being busy. Break the mold and stake your claim to living life in the High Country. Bring your One Thing to the fore and pursue it like your life depended on it.

Rule Your Mind
You are not your mind, you are your soul. Become the controlling witness to your mind and transform into a superior man. Just as your primitive brain operates many of your basic life functions automatically and without conscious effort, so does your frontal or thinking brain often run amok on its own. Without the proper guidance, control and training many of us will acquire a haphazard set of mental constructs that will sabotage our tremendous potential; we will become our own worst enemy.
Use your mind as a tool to launch yourself to new heights, by learning to recognize uncontrolled maladaptive thinking and then replacing it with superior patterns of thought. The first step in the process is to learn and practice basic meditation for 10 minutes every day. Do as many of the highest performing special operations, athletic and business professionals do and make it a daily habit.
As you get started meditating and attempt to quiet your mind, you will immediately recognize that your mind does indeed run amok despite your explicit instructions to the contrary. We will call this frustrating tendency Roving Mind or Mind Chatter. The first few weeks of your meditation practice will make this painfully evident, yet provide you with a conscious reminder of the need to acquire much better control over your own mind and how it functions.
Slowly but surely you will begin to recognize your Roving Mind both when meditating and during every day life. This will become a new level of consciousness for you. You will learn to easily recognize and then send unwanted and frivolous Mind Chatter on its way. And when these patterns of uninvited thought are negative and self-defeating you will learn to replace them with their positive complement.
After some time you will begin to recognize many of the same poor thought patterns repeating themselves. As you do, create a list of their positive counterparts as affirmations. Over time the conscious process of positive interdiction through affirmations will become muscle memory. Tell your mind what it needs to hear often enough and it will soon believe it. And that gentlemen, is how you get out of your own way and clear a path to personal greatness.

Study and Apply Stoicism
Learn to rule your mind first and then internalize and apply stoicism as the mental skill set to handle all the challenges that will inevitably appear as you gain new ground in your life.
Just because you’ve designed a new life for yourself that includes the impressive progression of Code, Vision, One Thing and meditation, doesn’t mean life and people will step aside and let you have your way. On the contrary, fate will now realize you are worthy and present a higher grade of obstacle as you press on. Stoicism will teach you how overcome the barriers placed in front of you and properly applied will also lead you to thrive in the thick of the fight.
The underlying foundation to Stoicism is to objectively accept that the challenges in life will never cease. This is the key, because it will avoid the demoralizing nature of new obstacles as they present themselves. It is now a matter of fact that problems will continue to arise. They are expected and you will always be up to the task of solving them. You will handle and solve your problems through the power of a detached and objective perception.
Just because your mind tells you something is bad and going to be very difficult, doesn’t mean you need to believe it. There is always a way to step back, reconfigure your thinking and then push forward.
The second pillar to Stoicism is action; right action based on objective perception. Persistence and creativity are the answers here. Once your mind is right and you decide to attack your problem, be smart and determined in your ambition.
If your first stab at the issue does not succeed, then take the long view and keep chipping away. If your consistent effort does not lead to a solution, take a step back and try another avenue. Look for leverage, a new point of view or perhaps even a simpler route; whatever works in the end is all that matters, the key is to take action and maintain objective perception.
The third broad stroke in Stoicism is the stubborn application of will and perseverance. This is taking your game one step higher when the initial excitement of a new challenge dissipates into a bare knuckle grind.
Here you can decide to coolly hold your ground and fight a war of attrition. Become blind to the cost, the time and the effort and hold out until your adversary breaks. Or you could submit to a cause bigger than yourself for inspiration, taking your struggle to a more meaningful level. And finally, if all is lost and beyond your control, you can admit defeat take what you can from the experience and then vow to start again.
Live as a Man Should
Make the decision to explicitly design your life. Set your Code, create an exciting Life Vision and then pick your One Thing. To get the job done and excel like you never have before, learn to Rule Your Mind and take control of your destiny. Finally, study Stoicism and apply it to each day without fail until it becomes second nature.
Do these things and you will wake up each morning with a fierceness of purpose and have the energy to drive yourself to the very best you can be. This is living as a man should and justifying your life with ambition, virtue and accomplishment.
All the best,
Max Panzer
Max Panzer is the publisher of Becoming a Force of Nature. He is an independent business owner and has been married to the same woman for over 25 years. Max pursues his Life Mission at full throttle and works to cut through each day with a stronger, sharper, gleaming edge.
This article was originally published on Becoming a Force of Nature.
