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3 Steps to Game-Changing Growth: Achieve Peak Performance by Designing a New You Your Guide to Entrepreneurial Transformation and Lifetime Success

By Terry Rice Edited by Dan Bova

Lindsey Thoeng

I walked away from a coaching job that paid $8k per week.

Why? Well, the answer is simple and complex at the same time; I just wasn't feeling it anymore.

To make matters worse, I felt guilty because I knew so many other people would be grateful for the opportunity I had. Heck, just a year before I was extremely grateful for the opportunity.

But something within me changed, and I knew I had to make some external changes as well. I'll get to those changes and the process I leveraged in a moment but first, let me ask you a few questions.

Have you ever felt confused about your purpose, or noticed the work that used to light you up now feels like a drag?

Or, do you ever feel like you're just going through the motions and aren't even sure where you're headed?

If so, I'd like to share the same solution that helped me out when I was going through similar challenges. Although I can't promise it will be easy, I'm certain it will lead you to greater clarity and fulfillment.

And if you've been following my work for a while you might be thinking "why is the business development guy suddenly talking about personal development?"

It's because all that soul searching I went through led me to a powerful realization.

I no longer want to solely focus on helping entrepreneurs build their brand and business. I also want to help you overcome setbacks, seize opportunities and perform at your highest level.

But, that can't happen until you get clear on who you are and where you want to go.

Here's the process I implemented to gain that clarity.

Step 1: Create a vision for your personal and professional life.

A personal vision statement is a mission statement of what you want to accomplish in your life, both personally and professionally.

This statement can be used as a guide when determining the career to pursue, making important life decisions, planning how you'll accomplish goals, and realizing your life dreams.

Before crafting your vision statement, remember that it's about what you want to accomplish and shouldn't be influenced by society or your peers.

"Your vision will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes." - Carl Jung

By definition, your vision is what you want to be, do, feel, think, own, associate with, and impact by some date in the future.

I'll share a snippet of mine so you can wrap your head around it.

My vision is to empower my family to explore the world around them, sustain themselves on their own terms and deploy empathy to everyone they come across. I'll support myself by teaching others how they can live in their own vision through the content I develop and deliver.

My days will start off at around 4:30 am with meditation and exercise. I'll then learn at least one new thing before making my children breakfast. Before they head off to school, we'll briefly discuss our family values and set our intentions for the day.

On most occasions I'll work from my home office. It's in the lowest level of our house allowing me to get work done even when my kids are bouncing off the walls above me . . .

I'll provide you with an opportunity to view the rest of my vision at the end of this guide. For now, start building yours.

Action item:

Use this guide to create your own vision, I suggest blocking off about 60 minutes to complete it.

Step 2: Document your personal philosophy

A personal philosophy is a set of beliefs, values, and principles that guide your behavior.

The power of knowing your personal philosophy comes from knowing yourself. When you are clear on what's important to you and what you stand for, you are equipped to handle life.

This "knowing" gives you strength and conviction to deal with life no matter what happens. It's important when you're on course, and things are going really well.

But when you're challenged, and things don't go right, your philosophy is the mechanism that keeps you on track and connected with the person that you know yourself to be.

My personal philosophy is "Live your legacy".

Why? Well, your legacy is the total of your life experiences, beliefs, values, and traditions passed down from generation to generation. In short, it's how you'll be remembered.

I want to be remembered as a good father and husband. And, in my professional life, I want to be remembered as someone who helped other people experience success and fulfillment on their own terms.

Here's an example of how it helps in my daily life.

When I'm tempted to yell at my kids for any of the many, many reasons they give me every day I can think to myself;

"Is that how you want to be remembered? If not, live your legacy. Chill out and find a better way to handle this."

Does it work 100% of the time? No. But at least I know how to get back on track when things go awry. Again, this "knowing" gives you strength and conviction to deal with life no matter what happens.

Action item: Follow the prompts in this exercise, then develop your personal philosophy. I suggest blocking off about 30 minutes.

Related: Don't Know What to Write About on LinkedIn? Use This Formula to Never Run Out of Ideas.

Step 3: Determine the actions you must take to live in the vision you've created

To live in the vision you've developed - which is aligned with your personal philosophy - you'll need to go through a professional and personal transformation.

The do, become, experience, learn and sacrifice exercise will help you hone in on what needs to change.

I'll provide you with an example below based on my current transformational goals.

Do:

  • Block of time on my calendar for content creation and learning
  • Block off time each day to connect with each of my children on a 1:1 basis

Become:

  • A thought leader in the world of high-performance and personal fulfillment
  • Better at helping my kids with their homework

Experience:

  • Getting paid to write a book about resilience
  • Going on a month-long vacation with my family

Learn:

  • How to consistently land high-profile speaking engagements
  • How to train my children on sports and fitness

Sacrifice:

  • Short-term revenue generating opportunities so I can focus on long-term success and fulfillment
  • My desire for others to consistently follow logic and reason

I've found it's helpful to do this exercise on a quarterly basis. It's a great opportunity to pause, reset and course-correct as needed.

Action item: Use the prompts in the exercise above to create your plan for this intentional transformation.

Related: The Entrepreneur's Guide to Crafting a Successful Future

Next steps:

Ready to discover more tips and tools to help you overcome setbacks, seize opportunities and perform at your highest level? Sign up for my free video course, The High-Performance Playbook.

Designed explicitly for entrepreneurs and high-performing professionals like you, this course gives you the tactics and routines needed to achieve relentless growth, peak efficiency, and sustainable fulfillment. You can enroll for free and start your journey today.

Terry Rice

Entrepreneur Staff

Business Development Expert-in-Residence

Terry Rice is the Business Development Expert-in-Residence at Entrepreneur and Managing Director of Growth & Partnerships at Good People Digital; an agency that provides marketing and monetization solutions for entrepreneurs. He writes a newsletter about how to build your business and personal resilience and personal brand in just 5 minutes per week and created a revenue optimization checklist to help you multiply your income potential. 

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