For the past decade, I’ve had a credo that I have transcribed in the front of every new journal I purchased. I’d read it habitually in the morning before journaling as a reminder of the life I wanted to lead. 

It hasn’t always worked, but it’s been something that I wanted to strive for. Sometimes I would try to focus on one line each day and other times I would just skim it. 

I’m not sure where I got the idea, I think a part of it came from “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People” and probably had some influence from other sources too. 

Over the last 10 years it’s been modified only minimally. Some subtle changes in the structure and a few phrases added or removed, but beyond that, it remains largely unchanged. 

Here it is in full in its current iteration.

“My goal is to live an extraordinary life with the ones that I love.

To do this I will need to:

• Succeed at home first
• And dream big, pursue my goals and live the life I’ve imagined

I promise to:

• Begin each day with a purpose
• Be positive and act with equanimity in all situations
• Be confident, modest and humble; never cocky or pretentious
• Listen and seek to understand first
• Encourage and facilitate the success of others
• Live in the moment
• Strive for incremental improvement
• Be relentless in the attainment of my goals
• Embrace leadership
• Be comfortable being uncomfortable
• Have a voracious thirst to learn
• Be the author of my own story
• Live by my principles
• Have an infectious enthusiasm for life
• Live simply, remain curious and grow stronger
• Be the captain of my soul

All we have to decide is what to do with the time given to us.”

Some of the phrases are lifted straight out of the 7 Habits, but other sources contributed as well. Acting with equanimity is from Marcus Aurelius. The “captain of my soul” bit is from “Invictus” by William Henley. “All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us” is my favorite Lord of the Rings quote. Might be some Tim Ferriss sayings in there. But really, just a hodgepodge of quotes that inspire me and have been etched into my brain over the course of my life. 

Now, just because I read it nearly every day, doesn’t mean that I follow through with it all. Some I’m certainly more consistent than others. But on the whole, this aligns pretty clearly with the person I would like to be.

Looking through my old journal from 2010 when I first wrote down my credo. I took a look at some of the goals I wanted to accomplish, and I was pleasantly surprised. Certainly some of the goals took longer than expected, and some never happened at all. But, overall I didn’t do too bad.

On the professional larger life goals, I wrote down and achieved things like,

• “Graduate from college” 
• “Move to Colorado” (this was 7 years before we actually did move). 
• “Get an article published” 
• “Work at an Outside Magazine Top 50 Places to Work winner.”
• “Start a Disc Golf Business”
  

In addition to the larger life and career goals, I wrote down some outdoor goals as well. And did things like:

• Climb a 14er
• Backpacking
• Rock Climbing
• Ride Across Wisconsin
• 50 Mile Mountain Bike Day
• Get Whitewater Rafting Certified
• Do a Muddy Buddy Race (mine was a Spartan race)
  

Like I mentioned, I didn’t cross off every goal I had written out, but it was at least half of them that I was able to check the box next to. 

Part of all of this makes me think of an exercise I first heard from Debbie Millman, which was to write down a vision of your ideal life 10 years into the future. Really go in deep. Digging into routines, specifics of where you live, what you eat, how you look. It should be pages long. Review that vision regularly, and you will naturally move towards that vision. 

Obviously, it's not foolproof (I wouldn’t think), but when she has done this exercise with her students, they are typically amazed by the results they see over the years.

I haven’t done that exercise in particular (yet), but I think by reviewing my goals and my credo on a regular basis, it has naturally led me closer to where I want to be. Maybe not 100% of the way there, but on the right path.