Every day that passes you’re moving further away from one stage of life and closer to another stage of life. This present moment is the last time in your life that you will be this young and in your current state. This current state could be a positive memory for you use to sustain your contentedness or a negative one that you use to change your course.

You’ve got to know when to accept that your window for some dreams have closed. This is a part of growing up and gaining maturity, but your far fetched “if I wanted to do that I totally could one day” dreams are likely getting less and less likely. If you’re over 20, start getting ready to say goodbye to any of your dreams that are easier to achieve via youth, such as dreams of being a pro athlete.

If you have dreams where that window is closing and you’ll have immense regret for not achieving them, then now is the time to go all in on that. For instance, my dream for the longest time has been to dunk a basketball. My time horizon here is longer than most people since I have height going for me, but I haven’t ever seriously trained this for as long as is needed. I spent a lot of my time in middle school and high school training specifically for lacrosse, which gave me some explosive ability but I didn’t take nutrition or recovery seriously enough (I had roughly a 32” vertical which would be plenty at my current height since I was a late bloomer who grew another 6 inches after I stopped training, but back then I was 5’9”).

When I was 20 I got close after about 6 weeks of training and then injured myself from over training. That attempt gave me the feeling that I definitely could do it, but I shifted my priorities to finishing school and getting serious about life (which subsequently made my physical abilities atrophy as I stopped training seriously). In the meantime I’ve amassed a lot of equipment to help me achieve this goal once I decide I’m ready to do so again, but my window is closing. Like everyone else (I’m assuming), I have multiple goals I’ve been simultaneously trying to pursue and achieve at the same time which has led to me half-assing most of them.

Go hard on the one goal of yours that is rapidly closing if you’re going to regret not achieving it, but if you have accepted that time is over then it’s time to plant the seeds and work on one that is open and has a long time horizon to achieve. Don’t fall into the trap that just because you have the rest of your life to become an actor or start a business that you shouldn’t start working on the requisite skills today.

Figure out the basics you need to master in order to reach your goal. The easiest place to start is by removing things from your life that are taking away time needed to pursue what matters to you. Reorient your life in a way that sets you up with the least possible friction between you and your end result. Ignore the other goals you have until you reach the point that you can start adding those activities in each day.

The goal here is not to overwhelm yourself with trying to do everything at the same time. Even the most well known polymaths didn’t master everything at the same time. They went through phases of their life where they focused on each area of mastery before going into something new that interested them. Assuming your abilities align, it’s ultimately your choice what goals you decide to achieve.

For what are we all after anyway? We want to be accepted, we want to look good, we want to feel good, we want to have good relationships, we want to have enough money to not need to worry, and we want to feel fulfilled.

Until next week,

Ian