Make It Your Own

A few weeks ago, my 12-year old son attended an intensive nature-oriented summer camp. Sleeping in canvas tents, living entirely outside, starting fire without matches, carving utensils. It was a challenging and rewarding experience for him, complete with peacefulness, shooting stars, and a strengthened sense of self. But that same camp would not have brought that result for my daughter, me, or my husband. It’s just not our thing, not a challenge we’re personally interested in meeting.

So often we struggle to reach our goals, maintain good habits, or be our best selves because we’re operating by another’s playbook.

We fail because a goal, an expectation, a lifestyle we’re chasing, even a budgeting method we’re trying to follow just doesn’t fit with who we truly see ourselves as, or who we want to become.

Instead our greatest successes often stem from our most intrinsically motivated desires – those uniquely you things. In The Comfort Crisis, Michael Easter talks about the concept of misogi, a crazy hard challenge you put yourself to in order to grow stronger and become a better version of yourself. Essentially, by doing hard things, you get better.

But we all know straight up adversity doesn’t always make us stronger. Negative experiences can also make us more afraid, anxious, and less engaged in the world.

So what’s the difference between the betterment from a well-designed misogi and the struggle from life’s hard knocks?

Partly, it’s about making challenges entirely, uniquely your own. Put another way, it’s about identifying and ruthlessly clarifying your personal standards, your unique desires and goals. What you do when no one is watching, when no one else will know, and no one will pat you on the head for it.

When you can aim your life more consistently in this way, the tools of life – like managing money – become easier to wield because you’re operating from an intrinsically motivated place.

You’re not keeping up with the Joneses.

You’re living a true-to-self set of values and priorities. Outside judgement about what you have, the car you drive, the clothes you wear, how big your house is just doesn’t matter.

And, more than that, intrinsic motivation is a far more potent and sustainable fuel to reach big, challenging goals than what your neighbors think of what you’re doing.

And when you do accomplish what you’ve been aiming for, the payoff for a goal that’s entirely yours is far more meaningful than achieving a milestone that only the outer culture values. When we look back and review our actions and achievements in life, we’re rarely most proud of the accomplishments that accounted to a pat on the head from society.

We’re most proud of when we were the best version of ourselves. When we followed that big dream, made the hard choices, did the harder, right thing.

Why live differently? That’s the wrong question. That’s answering to the outer view to justify yourself.

Instead, when you’re considering that different path, simply ask, “Why not?”