You don’t have to let others define your life.
Too often we try to meet other’s expectations. If you haven’t seen Casey Neistat’s video Do What You Can’t then you really should (language warning). It’s a fun take on the fundamental challenge to not let others define your life.
Happiness in Family Living by Defining Your Life
The biggest regret at the end of someone’s life is not living a life true to yourself.
This is one reason my wife and I homeschool our 5 kids. We want to empower our children to direct their own learning.
That’s how the best learning happens.
But it’s still easy to occasionally question ourselves, “What if they fall behind?” or “What if they don’t have the same experiences as everyone else?”
But defining success as only being the same as everyone else is a poor way to live your life. It’s a trap to think that someone outside of yourself will give you happiness. Many people get stuck believing success is something they have to wait for and that getting approval from someone at some point will fill their soul. That’s just not true.
Same for Building Products
It’s similar to building products.
Only copying the features of other products isn’t a path to a valuable product or company.
You’ll always be a step behind and you don’t focus on the most important part of the product — the user.
A better way to build products is to dedicate time to defining success. It’s much easier to know what to do next once you have clarity about what you actually want.
This is why most teams I work with need a better decision process. It’s easy to get stuck in letting other people or even your past self dictate your decisions. But you don’t have to.
Have the Courage to Define Your Life
I realized this week that I’ve been holding back.
Too often in the business I’m building, we’ve found ourselves asking, “what do others do?” or “how should we make sure this gets traction” vs boldly standing for the intersection of what we believe in and what we know is helping others.
I’ve committed to exercising more courage to build a business true to the change we believe should exist in the world, even if it’s not popular.
This mindset makes for successful marriages, successful teams, successful products, and successful parenting.
You not only have the ability to define what you want, but it’s just a better way to live.
Don’t let others define your life.