9 Little Behaviours That Attract a Higher Power Future to You

A big life means many things to many people. 

To me, it means the abundance of time, a focus on family, nature and life, and an appreciation of enough. I don’t want to spend my whole life chasing status, money or power. 

Those things are tools. 

Real life, at least to me, exists in the normal every day. It’s what I call a little, big life. It’s the thesis of my new book. 

A higher power future

Needs are the things you must attain in order to live. Food, water, shelter, etc. Perceived wants are the things you think you want in order to live a better life. 

We all go through a period of trying to keep up with the Joneses and accumulate more stuff in order to feel something more. Turns out, those things don’t serve you, they just make you feel a little better for a short while. 

Then when you figure that out, you move on to serving wants. Things that actually serve you. Things that bring joy to your life, not those things society teaches you to value (new iPhone, new fancy shoes, new Gucci top) more in the idea that money can bring joy in smaller things. Like good food, a comfier bed, and a better office chair. 

Things that actually make your life better because they provide higher utility. In the day-to-day, they actually improve your life. 

And then we get onto a higher-power life. The realisation of what you need to design a good day. Not milestones, not for tomorrow. Everything is grounded in how you optimise for the best day, today. Right now. 

A higher-power life is when you live your days in line with what gives you the most joy. You work on the stuff that gives you purpose, you eat the stuff that gives you health and wellness, and do the things that warms your soul. 

That’s the higher-power life. 

So what are the 9 behaviours that get you there? 

1. Normalize letting bad feelings exist and doing the work anyway.
2. Face the reality that not everybody will understand your path.
3. Accept that bad days are a downpayment for a good life.
4. Let noise and naysayers wash over you like water.
5. Set boundaries around your use of social media.
6. Realize that decision time eats into ‘doing time’.
7. Commit 5 years to the practice of true mastery. 
8. Optimise for when you have the most energy. 
9. Ask yourself how you want to live. 

The treadmill

Six years ago my life felt like I was constantly going around the same roundabout. I can see it now. 

A grass verge, a few trees and metal poles holding arrows, four of them all the way around. Each arrow points to the next, to the next, to the next. An endless loop of motion. 

I was watching my life go around that loop. 

Wake up, snooze, coffee, get ready, commute, office, lunch, meetings, coffee, coffee, coffee, commute, walk dogs, processed food, TV, asleep on the sofa. 

Over and over and over and over. 

Until snap. 

A truckload of emotion hit me one day after work. I don’t even remember the day, week or month. I remember the smell of the living room carpet. The pull of my suit trousers. 

At that moment, I thought I’d done everything wrong. But as I’ve found, rock bottom is a good place to build your foundations. 

Building up

Over the last 3 years, I’ve rebuilt myself. 

I know that sounds odd, cringe even but really there is no other way to put it. I know this self-help stuff can be a bottle of cringe with a fancy ribbon on but there is nothing remotely cringe about living your life in line with your vision. 

It’s a higher-power life. 

It’s a life that you’ll look back on and be full of warmth and pride. 

I’m working on making it sound less cringe, but for now, I’ll just speak the truth of the last three years. I thought it was over for me. The 3 years prior I’d tried every business in the book, listened to all the podcasts, watching success videos on repeat. 

But it wasn’t until I started showing up for myself, properly, that I really started understanding the game that I got better at it. 

If you’re stuck, reread those 9 things. 

It took me 3 years to truly understand all of them.