Hey there,
I was talking with one of our students in our community during our first live office hours that we launched yesterday and a topic came up that I wanted to share.
The idea of “bombing.” 💣
Now, I know what you’re thinking… Why the hell is someone who is supposed to help me be more successful talking to me about “failing”? But bear with me.
I want to share something with you that most creators aren’t going to tell you because it doesn’t help their "done-for-you" marketing to sell the perfect life that you want so badly. But it’s something that you may have already noticed in your own life.
No matter how hard you work, it always seems like you just can’t “get it all done.”
There is always another bridge to cross, another bend to get around. There is always something.
Even we get caught up all the time in this thought that "As soon as we can just get back [x, y, z], we can move on to more important things."
We’ve all been fed the lie that we can “have it all" -- that we can clear our plates and finally finish our to-do list. With the right strategies, we can suddenly and seamlessly realize our biggest dreams on top of our existing life.
You’re told by these YouTubers, gurus, and snake oil salesman that "With the right system, you can have it all."
The body you want, the business you want, the relationship with your family you want. You just have to know what to do, and you can add all that success right into your normal life routine. Sounds amazing right??
Hell, sign me up!
They convince you that all you’re missing is the “know-how”.
But here’s the hard truth... (After a split-second break from our ad sponsor this week)
Creating Something New and Extraordinary Requires Sacrifice
You don’t get more hours in the day, just new priorities to fill them.
Your new life will cost you your old one. There will be new things you will have to learn and other things you will have to let go of for now.
You’re going to have to miss out on things you could be doing in order to do the things you care about.
With every decision you make, you are choosing to eliminate all the other seemingly infinite possible choices or decisions you could make at that moment, essentially choosing to "bomb" at them. đź’Ł
This might seem like a scary thing, but it is actually something that can give you a great sense of both freedom and control, believe it or not.
We all have the same 24 hours in a day. Even the most successful people you admire can’t do and have it all.
They’ve made the tough choice to intentionally bomb at certain areas of life for a period to free up their focus on what's more important to them.
Maybe it was letting their home get a little messy, skipping workouts for a few months, or doing the bare minimum at their 9-5 job so they could stay up late to work on their business.
But they did it consciously and by doing so, they did it without guilt.
Do It With Intention
It's not a sign of failure but of focus.
And this is what makes all the difference.
When you intentionally re-prioritize and decide what you are willing to let slide or give up (for now), it removes the shame and the resistance.
You don't have to spend every step of the way fighting it (and usually failing at the thing anyway).
You can consciously let it go in favor of another goal that is of greater importance to you.
When I decided to prioritize growth for Create and Go, I began to plateau in my running results.
It wasn’t that running suddenly became unimportant to me; I still run a few times a week, but I began to let my focus shift more to just going outside and getting fresh air and having fun rather than trying to get “better”.
Why? Because it was demanding a lot of my focus and attention.
Knowing this has allowed me to accept my results with less frustration and guilt. Sometimes I even leave my watch at home to just enjoy what I'm doing and obsess over my progress less.
I am choosing to “bomb” at running for a while while I focus on growth in other areas. I want to focus on my business, family, and meditation and mindfulness.
You can decide to change these priorities at any time. Just make sure you're doing it consciously.
Get Radically Honest About Your Priorities
So, today I want to challenge you to get radically honest about your priorities.
1. Make a list of all your roles and responsibilities that take up your day.
Rank them in order of importance for this season of your life. The ones at the bottom? Those are your candidates to “bomb at” for a set period (say, 3 months).
Maybe you need to bomb having a perfectly tidy home to launch your online business. Or bomb that unrealistic workout regimen to finally write your book.
2. Once you’ve decided what to intentionally let go of, get an accountability partner to help you stick to it.
Bombing doesn't also have to mean completely “going off the deep end” (i.e. never working out ever). It just means that you should cut yourself a break and give yourself some grace to slack off in this area.
Schedule time for your highest priorities and give yourself permission to underperform in those “bomb” areas without guilt.
If you do have time for them, go for it. You might even enjoy them more without the pressure.
The path to achieving our biggest dreams is rarely an “addition” problem of squeezing something into our existing life. It’s more of a prioritization game.
There is a reason Steve Jobs was considered a “bad dad” and why Elon Musk doesn’t have a six-pack.
It's not that YOU can't do it all. It's that NO ONE can do it all.
Remember that.
Quote of the Week (Pick which one you like better)
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​“Convenience culture seduces us into imagining that we might find room for everything important by eliminating only life’s tedious tasks. But it’s a lie. You have to choose a few things, sacrifice everything else, and deal with the inevitable sense of loss that results.”
“We’ve been granted the mental capacities to make almost infinitely ambitious plans, yet practically no time at all to put them into action.”
― Oliver Burkeman, Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals
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Cheers,
Lauren and Noah