2991: Why This Way by Colin Wright of Exile Lifestyle on Living Your Own Life

[00:00:00] J'ai une paille par France. And hop! With the new foldable Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6. No matter if it's a business talk or vacation, you'll be able to stay up to date with Galaxy AI thanks to integrated Dolmetscher. Just set the Galaxy Z Flip 6 up in the Flex Mode

[00:00:17] and follow the translation on the main display while you're reading it on the front display. So easy! Galaxy AI is here. Erfare ich jetzt mehr über das neue Galaxy Z Flip 6 auf Samsung.de This is Optimal Living Daily Episode 2991

[00:00:34] Why This Way by Colin Wright of Exile Lifestyle.com and I'm Justin Malik. Happy Friday if you're listening in real time and welcome to the podcast where I read to you covering personal growth and self-help topics like mindfulness, minimalism, self-care and more.

[00:00:52] And I'm gonna get right to our next article as we optimize your life. Why This Way by Colin Wright of Exile Lifestyle.com One of the most important questions you can ask yourself at any point in your life is why? A deluge of valuable realizations can dawn

[00:01:16] as you pause and assess and wonder and perhaps make some changes to the way you do things. We're not typically encouraged to question the paths we follow, so reaching that point generally doesn't happen until we're shocked into pausing and asking or until we reach a milestone moment,

[00:01:35] a so-called midlife crisis or even a quarter life crisis which seems to be increasingly common these days. If we're lucky, that moment of befuddlement leads to a new path that's better aligned with the goals we actually hope to reach. We ask why, determine why

[00:01:54] and then recalibrate our actions around that newly sharpened purpose. But there are important secondary questions that are often overlooked even during these moments of clarity and revision. For instance, why am I doing this in this particular way? The way you pursue a goal can be just as important

[00:02:15] as the goal itself. The journey is often just as or more valuable than the destination, so it's a good idea to ask yourself whether you wanna take the trip on a bike or in a canoe or via teleporter, whether you want to pursue your dream of curing cancer

[00:02:33] by taking the traditional medical professional career track or through some asymmetric outsider approach. The answer to this question can influence a great deal of what you do day to day and how much you enjoy the pursuit of something you consider to be important.

[00:02:50] It can also determine the shape of your outcomes and who you evolve into along the way. Another question, how will I sustain myself? This isn't a fun question for most people. It's a true bummer to decide that you wanna travel the world

[00:03:07] and then be forced to work out your expenses and income, your assets and liabilities to address our debts. But sustaining ourselves whatever path we might take is necessary and that means ensuring our income covers our expenses plus more than that ideally.

[00:03:26] We also need to ensure our paths are sustainable physically and psychologically. It's not uncommon to plan out a superhuman route to a goal we want to accomplish only to find partway through that continuing at that pace will destroy our health or that operating without backup

[00:03:44] without some kind of sturdy support system and periodic breaks is making us feel alone and depressed. For a lifestyle to be sustainable, it needs to be doable over the long haul. That means taking a lot of not so fun, not so Instagrammable aspects of your planned route

[00:04:03] into account. Finally, how will I know it's time to ask why again? If we're lucky, we have the good fortune of question and pivot in this way a few times over the course of our lives but it's possible to build this type

[00:04:17] of big picture questioning into your life on a more regular basis. What this requires is a periodic excuse to step back from your daily rituals and routines so that you can assess your broader concerns. What works for me is taking 20 minutes a day to do absolutely nothing,

[00:04:37] to just sit quietly with no music or other distractions and either close my eyes or stare at the wall. I just allow myself to think about anything at all with no set goals or specific motivations beyond allowing myself to mentally step back and just be for a while.

[00:04:57] During these breaks, I'll often be reminded of the bigger picture. I'll address smaller day-to-day things as well but because there's time and I know I'm not going anywhere, not rushing to do anything else, I can afford to check in and see if what I'm doing,

[00:05:12] the bigger picture guiding those day-to-day actions, still makes sense for who I am and what I believe and what I want to accomplish. Getting to that why moment is unto itself a very valuable thing. Expanding on that question and asking it over and over,

[00:05:32] acting upon what you learn can be even more beneficial in terms of living the most U-shaped life possible. You just listened to the post titled, Why This Way by Colin Wright of ExileLifestyle.com. Thank you to Colin, another great reminder.

[00:05:53] Doing nothing is a fine way to step back for sure but you might find it incredibly boring. I think if you're new to meditation or never done it before, sitting and doing nothing without looking at a phone or device or having music on or something

[00:06:11] will be a bit maddening. It can truly be frustrating which is something worth investigating further or asking why about, circling back to the main idea of this article. Another method is writing it out. You can pick a goal you have, a vision, a job, whatever

[00:06:30] and then basically ask yourself why over and over to really get to the bottom of it. I think that was a Steve Pavlina article where he suggested doing that to find your life's purpose. I believe he said that you'll know you found your life's purpose

[00:06:45] after asking why a bunch of times and when you reach the answer that makes you cry. It's an interesting one worth trying but even just giving it a tiny bit of thought today could have an impact so I hope you're able to ponder that today.

[00:07:00] And with that, I hope you have a great Friday if you're listening in real time. Thank you for listening and I'll see you tomorrow. Where your optimal life awaits.