This was, by far, the best year of my life.

Not only has it been an incredible adventure but I have experienced incredible change, and learned so much about who I am and the life that I want to lead.

Before I move on to what I hope will be another incredible year (Scale My Life 2.0) I wanted to share what I had taken away.

Here is, part 2 of my lessons to scale your life (Part 1 here):

Passion now, money later

If all you seek in life is money then be prepared for a slow grind and a bitter reward.

When I started Scale My Life I had no idea where it would take me, I just knew I wasn’t happy and I needed to do something different.

Rather than focusing only on what I could get paid to do, I committed myself to doing things I’d always wanted to do.

I pursued creative passions like writing, design, and videography without any expectation of financial return. Ironically, it was this very pursuit of passions over profits that led me to develop the means to start my own business and escape the rut that I was in.

“There is no greater thing you can do with your life and your work than follow your passions – in a way that serves the world and you.” – Richard Branson

Don’t hold out on pursuing your passions because they’re not profitable.

If you do things that make you incredibly happy, even if they make you no money, opportunities will just open up.

Set crazy, insane, moon shot goals

Ever heard the saying ‘aim for the stars and you’ll land on the moon?’ Well, that’s because the simple fact is if you set weak goals you’ll get weak results.

My attempt to experience something new every single day for an entire month was an insane moon shot goal. I was told it was crazy and dumb but to me, it was awesome and incredibly cool!

“If your dreams don’t scare you, they aren’t big enough.”

Through this experience, I realized that only by striving for something unachievable can we push ourselves to do what we consider impossible.

Learn to fail, but fail forward

Back in August, I set out to read 10 books in a month, I only reached 7.

Dealing with that failure was stressful, emotional, and humbling but it also really helped me grow as a person.

I learned that failure is just a part of striving to reach the moon so it’s not failure that you have to worry about but how you deal with it that matters.

“Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.” – Winston Churchill

I think that’s what failing forward means. You may face failure at times, but as long as you can take something from it and apply it to your future pursuit moving forward then you’ve never really failed.

Micro before Macro

We often feel like the only way to create change in our life is to make large painful decisions.

“Don’t like where you live? Move. Don’t love your job? Quit.”

The reality is, real change doesn’t happen overnight and if you really want things to change then you need to start small to see big results.

My swimming challenge was probably the best example of this.

At the beginning, I literally couldn’t swim 25 meters across the pool and I was facing the crazy challenge of swimming a 2000 meters set by the end of month.

I was petrified looking at the daunting goal all at once and at the time I thought that I might actually die…but, by just breaking things down into small micro goals of 25 meters at a time, I slowly built my way up to swimming 2 kms across the Okangan Lake.

“Success is the sum of small efforts – repeated day in and day out.” – Robert Collier

The same principle can be applied to life. If you can take action and make micro changes in your life, they will eventually lead to the life that you desire.

Plan ahead

The first step in taking on any challenge is building an epic plan.

Companies spend months designing successful business plans, athletes plan out every workout in order to achieve their goals, and yet very few of us bother to make a strategic plan for our actual lives.

It’s no wonder we float through our lives without a purpose or direction, we haven’t committed ourselves to one.

“You were born to win, but to be a winner you must plan to win, prepare to win, and expect to win.” – Zig Ziglar

Take the time to decide what you want your life to be and build a plan as to how you will get there. This small effort will guide you can accomplish more than you ever thought possible.

I look forward now as I develop my new strategy to continue to build on my incredible year.

I’m not sure yet where it will take me but I know if I continue to apply these lessons, commit to challenging myself in unique ways and focus on always trying to learn and grow, I will have a life worth living.

Click here to read Part 1 of my lesson from the best year of my life.