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Many of us go through our lives reaching for the stars. We try to set goals that put us at the top of the totem pole. Nothing but the best will satisfy us. Whether it is in gaining wealth or knowledge, we try our best to be on top. Yet others sear that they are happiest when they focus on what makes them happy now. Is it settling or being content? When is it that we decide whether we are better off having more or wanting less?

It’s a tough thing in life to fail on a dream. We make plans around what we are going to achieve, the homes we will live in, the type of partner we will share it with, and the type of wealth we will amass. Life sometimes comes along and kicks us in the teeth and we fail to achieve our goals. In some cases the hurt of the failure is enough to cause people to give up. Is it settling if we learn to be happy with what we have or is it growth in that we know ourselves better?

I think it is different for each person. Take Mother Teresa as an example. She gave up all wealth and personal material belongings living her life as a missionary. She wanted less material things and accomplished so much. No one would argue that she led and impactful and fulfilling life. Some might argue though that her ambition was centered in wanting and having a deeper relationship with God.

I think the ambition should always be to strive the best version of “me” that I can be. Look for ways to improve yourself so that you can have more and want for less. Have a more enriching life full of experiences and wisdom versus a life full of material belongings that leave you feeling hollow. Read books that build your knowledge. Find new passions and develop new skills that lead you towards fulfillment in those passions. You can want all the material wealth in the world, but if you are not growing as a person you will find no happiness in what you have attained.

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Abraham Lincoln once said,  “Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.” This quote really hit me. I started asking myself, “What am I preparing for.” Just the exercise of asking yourself can be painful or rewarding.

If you aren’t preparing you are preparing to fail. Planning for things will help you be ready to take advantage of new opportunities. Recently, I was forced to look at my career goals. Did I want to continue working for my current employer? What will happen if my employer decides to cut my position or terminate my employment? It was at this time that I realized that I hadn’t prepared myself properly for either instance. I view myself as a confident person and feel that I wouldn’t have trouble finding a new job given the time, but time out of work is money lost and bills unpaid.

Planning for the future takes practice though. Make yourself get into good habits. Start small if need be and stick to it. Lay out your clothes for the next day the night before. Prepare your meals for the week and freeze them so all you must do is grab and go on your way out to work.

Get into a good habit of ordering your life. A great quote to help you along comes from Admiral William McRaven. “If you want to change the world, start off by making your bed.” From personal experience, I love coming home and seeing that my bed is already made and inviting. It is a pleasant feeling that lowers anxiety and promotes a small feeling of safety and comfort. The quote means so much more than just having a comfortable bed though. If you can’t even order your own life, you can’t prepare for the future. Take small steps and make small decisions of discipline that will enrich your life. Prepare for the good and the bad. Build yourself a strong foundation so you are ready to grow and can take advantage of new opportunities when they come up.

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Everyone experiences indecisiveness in their lives. Most of us have different levels of indecisiveness. Maybe you can’t decide on what shirt to wear, what food to eat, what phone to buy, or any number of different things. What causes indecisiveness?

Let’s first look at the different types of personalities. Of the four personality types (Lion, Monkey, Owl, and Koala), 2 of them standout the most with indecisiveness; Owls and Koalas. Owls and Koalas have very different reasons though. Owls tend to refrain from making quick decisions because they have a desire to have all the information beforehand. Koalas tend to hold off to make sure they are not upsetting or inconveniencing someone else.

Owls will take something that many of us consider trivial and over analyze it. Is it the right price, does someone else have it cheaper, Is there a similar product that will do the same job, but also provide more or cost less? Koalas will usually wait for others to make the decision. At group gatherings, or outings, they often hold back from suggesting what to do so that they don’t exclude one person or another. Will they want to do this, does everyone like do go here, what time works best for everyone, will everyone find value in my suggestion?

None of the above is necessarily a bad thing. However, it is important to understand why we hesitate or why we have a hard time making decisions. A negative indecision comes from a sense of permanence. We delay deciding because we can’t see the results today. In those times we often feel that because we don’t see an immediate result, we need more information before making the final decision.

The importance for us is in recognizing when we are letting indecisiveness prevent us from moving forward with our improvement. Kyle gives a great example of a man wanting to talk to a woman he likes. The man goes through several internal questions before mustering up the courage to talk to her. Or he doesn’t. I went through something similar. I asked myself all the self-doubting questions that started building up my wall of excuses and ultimately led to me not talking to a woman I was interested in. Yes. If I had just gone to talk to her, I might have been shut down, or viewed as weird. True, I could risk upsetting that person, but I never took the risk and therefore, never had a chance.

There is a great statement that works in this situation. “If you don’t make a decision, you might not like the decision that is made for you.” Look at the decision before you. When you notice yourself building walls, ask yourself why you are building up defenses. Force yourself to make the decision. Start small, and you will find that deciding can be more fulfilling than waiting for others to make decisions for you.

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Many of us have daydreams about being billionaires. However, not everyone wants to be a billionaire. Does this mean that those people are less ambitious than those who do want to be billionaires?

A quick way to find your answer is to ask yourself some tough questions. The first question you should ask yourself is “What do I want to be?” This answer is simple for yourself. We all have images of what we want in life. Paint that picture for yourself. Get down to every detail of what you want to be in every aspect. Look at finances, health, relationships, and career.

The next question you want to ask yourself is “What steps have I taken to make this a reality?” For many of us, this is a difficult question. Not because we don’t know the answer, but because we know that we haven’t taken the steps necessary to get where we want to be. For me, an example would be in losing weight. My goal is to lose weight to be healthier. When I asked myself that question 6 months ago, it was painful because I realized that I didn’t do anything lasting to get where I envisioned myself.

Understanding why you made these decisions is also important. Ask yourself “Why” until you get beyond the superficial excuses. Understanding the “why” makes it possible to strip away the false excuses we have created for ourselves and make it easier to move forward.

We all start out wanting to be as successful as we can be. However, somewhere along the line, we start settling for less than the best. We start putting in less effort at work, we eat something unhealthy out of convenience, or we watch tv rather than work on a project that we should have completed already. It is always easier to settle because it allows us to get comfortable and stay within a pattern we created for ourselves. The problem with staying within a pattern is that it gets harder and harder to grow into who we wanted to be.

There is a fine line between not wanting to be a billionaire and settling for less. Understand yourself and look at where you truly want to be in life. Don’t sit back and let your success turn into a pipedream. Make your success. Don’t sit back and let failure come to you.

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What is a scarcity mentality and how does it affect us? This line of questioning should help us understand why we do the things we do in times of need. As we have said many times in our podcast history, “understanding why we do the things we do will help us break out of our self-made patterns and grow.”

One example of a scarcity mentality is the person who just lost their job and is worried about having the “necessities” they have grown accustomed to having. This person focuses so much on not having (scarcity), that they are not able to spend the brain power necessary to completely plan for the future. All they are focused on is the lack of money for bills and food that they often miss other important details. Very quickly, a credit card gets maxed out buying the “necessities” so that they don’t run out while looking for a new job. At some point, the credit is gone, the last of the money is gone, and there is nothing left to pay bills, or even get a tank of gas. We call this tunnel vision.

Tunnel vision occurs when you focus too much on the one problem and not enough on your surroundings. You look at a problem like not having enough money and don’t spend enough time planning for future needs. When we fall into the pattern of tunnel vision due to a scarcity mentality, we make it more difficult four ourselves to get out of the pattern.

Rather than wait until times of scarcity, make plans to be prepared for the future if the worst should happen. One of the best decisions I ever made was to talk with a financial advisor. Financial advisors help us budget and plan for those times where we don’t have an income. They help you have a pre set plan that helps you during those bad times. That way, you don’t end up panicking about “not having enough.” Instead, your plan kicks in and you start making important decisions to get yourself out of the bad times.

I think the real important take away from this episode is that if you make simple good choices and plans for the future, you can be prepared for dealing with issues that come up in a growth-oriented manner. If not, you risk falling into that old path of tunnel vision and scarcity mentality.

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Have you ever been questioned about your level of ambition? It can cause a myriad of feelings to run through your mind. You might feel angry, defensive, devalued, disappointed, mistreated, and underestimated. It can be painful to hear someone in a place of leadership question your ambition and suggest that you might not be providing value at your place of work.

Recently I went through this situation at work. I was pulled into one of the many quiet offices we have, and the manager bluntly stated to me, “You’ve been in this position for 6 years and haven’t been advanced. You must be doing something wrong that management wouldn’t see fit to advance your career here.” My mind immediately jumped through all the hoops mentioned above. I even considered walking out and quitting right then and there.

Why do we feel this way though? If you really like the job you have, should you be trying to advance into other roles? There is a fine line between liking your job and settling for something safe. If you truly love your job and that is all you ever wanted to do in life, do it. Keep developing in that job though. Don’t get to the point where you are doing the bare minimum to get by. If you find yourself doing the bare minimum and it gets to be a tough internal argument to go into work, you are most likely just settling.

In most professional settings a business looks for ambitious people. Someone who exhibits the right amount of ambition is someone who isn’t complacent in their role. They have a plan for where they want to go from where they are now. They see that you have a goal, plan things out, and have trackable milestones to create some accountability. These are all good signs that a person has a healthy work ethic to a company. They call this ambition. If they don’t see that in their employees, they can’t count on the employee always performing their best.

I had to take a deeper look at my role at the company I work for and analyze whether I was giving my best. I know that I am, but I haven’t shown leadership through my communications. It has never been part of who I am to call attention to the things I am doing at work. I show pride in what I do when it succeeds and work hard to right any failures. The one thing I lacked was the desire to move out of the safety of where I was and branch out to get noticed. If you are noticed, your flaws can be seen by people who can decide if you keep your job or not. It is an uncertain way to live because you know what you can expect from the safety of your comfort zone. However, there is very little room for growth as a person in this way of thinking.

The point is that we don’t want to mistake comfort with satisfied. Just because you are comfortable with your job, doesn’t mean that is where you should want to stay. Look for opportunities to become more successful. If not in a new position, make sure you are always expanding your skills and knowledge for where you are. That will keep you fresh, and show your coworkers/managers that you are always giving your best.