Whenever you are putting something together, be it new IKEA furniture or a LEGO set, we refer to the manual to see what our next move is, or if our next move is the right one. What if we had a life compass as something we could turn to when we have decisions and choices to make? It wouldn’t eliminate uncertainty, but it would orient it. If a difficult situation came up, we could turn to our life compass, and if it matches up correctly, we know what to do. So, how do we create our own life compass?
Building Your Own Life Compass
The most important part in building guidance for your life is to clearly state what you want with your life. This can’t be in generalities; it has to be specific in all areas. The most common areas are:
- Health
- Relationships
- Career
- Spiritual
- Character
These categories are different for everyone; these are just the ones that came to mind when thinking of my own life compass.
Health
Very few goals can be accomplished if you don’t have your health. I feel like this is the basis of any well-lived life; if you are struggling with your health, it will be much more difficult to stay consistent with a goal. This doesn’t mean you can’t have anything wrong with you, but manage to the best of your abilities the health problems that are under your control, be the healthiest you can be with the things you can do.
You always hear the popular saying that some of the wealthiest people in the world would trade all their money to have their health back. We take it for granted how valuable good health is.
Once you create health goals in your life to get healthy or stay healthy, you add actions you must undertake to reach and maintain this goal. These can be things like eating a healthy, balanced diet, not eating junk food, exercising a set amount of times a week, etc.
When the time comes to make a decision and our health goals have become part of our life compass, the choice is straightforward. If the action doesn’t align with our goals, we don’t do it.
Relationships
Relationships can be anything from family, friends, parenting, romantic relationships, or professional relationships.
We can build rules on how we act, behave, and handle different relationships. We could have goals to spend X amount of time with our parents or siblings, plan something romantic with our significant other, or be present with our children. When we feel ourselves straying from the path, we can refer to our life compass and revisit what our goals for this area are and readjust accordingly.
Career
A career can be your goal as an employee, entrepreneur, or a craft you want to master. Using myself as an example, I have a 9-5 job and a side career goal to become a published author.
The goals for my normal job would be to show up on time, be reliable, do my job to the best of my abilities, and get along with my coworkers. Showing up late, being unreliable, causing problems at work, and being lazy wouldn’t align with my life compass.
For my writing career, I set goals to read a certain amount of time per day and write a set amount of time per week. My life compass would keep me from overly playing video games, scrolling on my phone, or binging TV, because I know those hours need to be allocated to reading and writing. My life compass reduces the friction in decision-making.
Spiritual
Not everyone has a religious belief system; the spiritual category can also be any personal strategies that you use to regulate attention, meaning, and inner calm. The important part is that it’s something that brings you peace of mind and assists you in achieving your goals. If going to church is your thing, you can make a goal to attend church a set number of times a month or read the bible for a set amount of time a week. For non-religious spiritual goals, it can be to meditate every day, go on a hike, garden, journal, or do anything that brings you inner peace.
Character
The last area for my life compass is character, and I think this is one of the hardest ones to follow because many of the results do not come with recognition. For the most part, character is largely internal and tested privately.
One of the best tests I have for myself to see if my character compass is true, is asking myself: “What would I do if no one was watching?” “Would you still do the right thing if no one would find out you did otherwise?”
Practicing restraint, staying honorable, having courage, and practicing delayed gratification are many traits of character that go unnoticed if you choose one or the other. You are the only one holding yourself accountable. I believe this to be the highest level of a life compass and will be the hardest one to master. Spend the most time in this area making goals and rules for yourself because many of the traits you aspire for in this area spill over into the other areas of the life compass.
The Continuous Journey
Building a life compass is not something you do once and forget about it. It’s something you will work at for the rest of your life. It feels discouraging knowing you will never be finished with something, but the reason is that life is unpredictable and full of different seasons. A life compass when you’re a teenager will look much different than middle age, supporting a family, and running a business. Look forward to revisiting your life compass because it will be a lesson every time in how much you have grown as a person and a display of what areas of your life no longer need a compass to accomplish. Many of your early areas in your life compass will become habits that do not need a constant reminder to achieve; this will show growth.
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Book Ponder focuses on the incredible power of reading, and even though stand-alone articles like these are unique ideas, I like to credit any books that inspired or gave me the resources for the idea.
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