The 3 Essential Traits to 'Living Life On Your Terms'
Tracey Livingston Howard
Co-Owner and Head of School, Acton Academy Curaçao
Do you have a wildly ambitious goal or dream you are wanting more than anything?
Yesterday I felt pure joy towards a client who had successfully resigned from their business they had founded decades ago, and were now entering the realm of the unknown.
The unknown being a life on their terms.
In today's world, more and more people are seeking the thrill of living a whole life of success on their terms. And yet they hesitate, how do some people achieve that and others don't? What's the secret?
With hundreds of real-life clients, case studies, and being in the back-room witnessing why some succeed and others don't, I have boiled it down to three traits.
To live life on your terms, you must have:
Take another two minutes to read this article. You are going to learn some pretty incredible things that can jumpstart your progress towards your wildly ambitious goal or dream. I promise...
Self-Authoring Mind
In Bob Kegan and Lisa Lahey's book, Immunity to Change, they found that every person has either a 1) Socialized Mind, 2) Self-Authoring Mind , or a 3) Self-Transforming Mind.
Someone with a socialized mind conforms to society. They are good at following rules, adopting common beliefs and values in society, behaving in socially acceptable ways, and making choices based on the general needs and wishes of others.
This is a perfectly acceptable approach in certain circumstances! However, if we want to live life on our terms, which will require us to do things outside conformity with others - it requires that we at least develop a self-authoring mind.
A self-authoring mind constructs its own narrative. This person is connected to their individual identity, individual beliefs and values, individual drives and wishes, and uses individual discretion.
A self-authoring mind follows their own self-opinion over the opinion of society.
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Self-Esteem
In order to stand on our own two feet with our beliefs and choices, that's where high self-esteem comes in. Before we can act on our ideas, we first need to like ourselves, esteem ourselves, and respect ourselves. When we're grounded in ourselves, we are able to make powerful choices that may run counter to society or the cultural norms.
As Wayne Dyer said, “the self-actualized person is independent of the good opinion of others.” When we decide to live life on our terms, we become independent of the opinion of others.
Courage to Act
If this sounds easy, it's not, which is why the third trait we must have to live on our terms is the courage to act.
We can have our biggest dreams and desires in our mind, and even have very high self-esteem and self-regard, but if we don't do anything about it - our life won't change. It takes courage to go for something we want, especially if it's going to disrupt or blow up the current life we have.
Which is important to note, that Self-authoring minds take on responsibility.
What separates the amateurs from the pros is courageous action. With a self-authoring (or self-transforming) mind and high self-esteem, you are incredibly more likely to make steps to change your life for the better.
That's why these are the three essential traits to living life on your terms.
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What's your take on this? What do you think it takes to live life on your terms? Or what did you learn, what was interesting about this article for you personally?
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Thanks for reading.
xx Tracey
www.livlitceo.com
Senior Partnerships Manager | Building Relationships with Founders & Creators That Drive Innovation | Ex-LinkedIn | Content Creator | Responsible AI | Founder "Too AMBITIOUS" LIVE
1yI really enjoyed this Tracey! I’d like to think I do a lot of self authoring but not all the time🙃
Co-Owner and Head of School, Acton Academy Curaçao
1yI hope this article gives people some peace as to why they want to go after stuff people only dream of doing. It might simply be that you have a self-authoring or self-transforming mind. If that's true - you will always check in with yourself and what you want, and act on it, rather than going with the flow of society. And YES, we can move from a socialized mind to self-authoring to self-transforming. It's not fixed.