First published 25 March 2024 on Your Best Year Starts Here with Nigel Risner.
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Nigel had some making up to do on this one. Back in episode 214 he said there were three things you need for a good life and promised to cover the other two the week after. I bet him he wouldn't remember. He didn't. This week the light bulb finally came on.
Number one was a sense of purpose, which we'd already done. Number two is a capacity for growth. But the one Nigel really cares about is the third, a spirit of adventure. He's 61, he works hard, and he wants more fun now instead of saving it all for when he retires and might not have the health for it.
He'd just come back from seven days in the Masai Mara. One day was 13 hours in a truck, and it took him a couple of goes to work out that "does anyone need to check the tyres?" meant a toilet stop. He's trying to book Botswana for next January, maybe with hot air ballooning or paragliding thrown in.
I've had clients asking me lately for a detailed five-year plan. I tell them to know the destination and only plan the detail about three months out, because five years before this none of us had Covid on the radar. My version is a trip from Brighton to Edinburgh. I know roughly when I want to arrive and I'm not that fussed about the car or the route. Nigel says that's fine for me because I'm a monkey (fair) but an elephant would want the timesheet. We also got onto the comfort zone, which to me is where your problems already are, you just haven't spotted them yet. Push past it and you hit fear. Learn to deal with whatever it is and you're back in a comfort zone, only a bigger one.
Nigel's test is your diary. Look at the last 28 days and the next 28 and see how much of it lines up with those three things. When life's working he reckons it's about 80%, and the rest is taking the rubbish out and emptying the dishwasher. I threw in a trick with be, do, have. Drop the do, glue the other two together, and you get behave.
I finished by telling him he'll love his new personal trainer if he sticks with it. For the record, he says that's never going to happen. Best I got out of him was that it might get a bit more enjoyable at some point.
What I took from this one
- Know where you're heading, but only plan the detail about three months out.
- Your comfort zone is where problems are already sitting that you just haven't spotted.
- Uncomfortable isn't the same as danger. Go out of your comfort zone, not into your danger zone.
- Look at your diary for the last 28 days and the next 28. If about 80% of it is stuff that matters to you, life's working.
- Drop the "do" from be, do, have and you get behave.
It's the zone where you've got problems you don't know about yet. They're there already, you just haven't seen them.
Neil Martin
I wanna be in control of not being in control, and sometimes just saying, "Let's go where we go."
Nigel Risner
