What Excites You in Life? Use Green Light Thinking

So last time we talked about the "WHY". Today I want to talk about the ‘WHAT’, so once you sort of know ‘why’ you’re going to go for something, you have to work out ‘what’ it is you’re going to go for. Now, some people often flip these. Some people think they need the ‘why’ first other people think they need the ‘what’ first. So for me, I actually think it’s the ‘what’, so find something you want to go after. Find something that excites you so much and then you sit down and determine what we spoke about before, about ‘why’ it’s important to you, because that, the ‘WHY’ will keep you going, but the ‘WHAT’ is what excites you every single day to get out of bed.

MY PERSONAL ‘WHAT’ AND ‘WHY’

So obviously in my Olympic career the ‘what’ was an Olympic gold medal. Now as I have a beautiful baby girl a lot of my dreams and goals revolve around giving her the best life she can have. But also I’m a big entrepreneur, I do a lot with the Olympic committee, I have my own charity tackling childhood obesity, I’m putting beach volleyball into surf clubs in their nippers programs and I run nutrition business to keep everyone fit and healthy. So there’s plenty of things there, the ‘what’ that I do, and I’ve had to sit down and work out ‘why’ I want to do all of those things, so that’s the start of the process.

GREEN LIGHT THINKING

So I encourage you today, tomorrow or at least in the next few days to sit down with what we call ‘green light thinking’ and all you do is just write a list of everything you want in your life, everything you love to do in your life, things you want to attract to your life1. From material things like cars and houses and helicopters and boats, to spiritual things like doing tours through Africa or helping build orphanages in Bali or whatever it is in between. Then with that huge list, you just keep that list forever, but what we do in the first instance is highlight or circle your top ten and even maybe your top five and then go to work on achieving those as your ‘what’. So spend some time understanding the ‘why’ you want to achieve those and ‘what’ would be different in your life if you would have had them, not only your life, but of the lives of those around you.

LIST OUT WHAT EXCITES YOU IN LIFE, THEN PRIORITISE AND GO FOR GOLD!

So we’ve been through ‘why’ we’ve been determined the ‘what’. So the little trick there is just write a huge list. Don’t let your brain tell you, “oh you can’t have that, you can’t have this, that’s not possible, why would you want that…” Just write a list and then you get to pick the top five or top ten and go to work on those. Now some of those you could probably do quickly within weeks or months, others might take years, but this is the fruits of our life, this is the tapestry of our life, it’s what makes it colourful and exciting. So find out what it is that excites you. I’ve wanted to fly a plane, but I flown a helicopter. So that plane was very loud. So some of you might want to be pilots, so good luck with your list. Make sure you don’t let any of your negative thinking stop you. ‘Green light thinking’ and then pick the top five or ten that excite you and we’ll see you again soon. Happy writing!