“Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while you could miss it.” — Ferris Bueller
This is one of my favourite quotes of all time. The delivery through the forth wall, what it represents to the character and to a generation he was speaking to. I always imagined myself capturing the greatest moments of my life like Ferris. But at 31 years old I realized a hard truth; I was working as mid-level manager, socializing or watching TV far too often and accomplishing very little. Life was passing me by…
After some (a lot of) late night reflection I realized the answer; I needed to scale my life. How would I do this? I would go back to basics. Like many people I was most productive when I was in school, where they gave me structure and clear goals to execute. My plan was to rebuild these short-term deadlines with lofty goals that I was passionate about but for one reason or another had left to fall by the wayside or procrastinated away for far too long.
My plan: 12 big challenges in 12 months.
- Learn WordPress and build a blog to document my journey
- Become a better cook: Cook something new every day for a month
- Budgeting Goal: Live on $250 for a month (after basic bills and fixed costs)
- Learn to meditate and practice it for a month
- Become a vegetarian for a month
- Swim a 2000m set
- Experience something new every day for a month
- Read 10 books in a month
- Start a business in a month
- Learn a new language in month
- Fitness Challenge (1-hour intense workout every day + Paleo diet)
- Charity challenge (volunteer at 12 different charities in a month)
I’ve now completed my year and the transformation it made for me was indescribable. Each challenge added so much value to my life and gave me back the purpose and passion I had been missing.
Now having completed my year of epic challenges I’m attempting to implement the same strategy to take my life to a whole new scale (pun intended). I don’t know where the rest of this journey will take me but if the second half is anything life the first I know I’m in for one incredible ride.
Please follow me, join me, or share your own challenges and we can create a community of dedication, accountability, and action.
Sincerely,
Ryan Lancaster
Life Upscaler