The Ultimate Guide to Developing Your Primary Aim and Unlocking Your Dream Life
read time 5 minutes
Welcome to Austin's Analects, a weekly newsletter where I share actionable insights for optimizing performance and living ridiculously well.
TL;DR
What is a Primary Aim?
Why having a Primary Aim is important
How to create your Primary Aim
My Primary Aim
There’s one difference between great people and average people. Great people create their lives while average people allow life to create themselves.
No doubt, it’s easier to be average. Especially when you’re young. It’s just easier to fit in. But fitting in is just a means to an end.
Trust me, I’ve been there.
I’m 26 now, but I vividly remember trying to do everything I could in elementary and middle school to fit in with everyone—to be a part of the “it” crowd.
I quit playing the sports I loved to try to break into different friend groups
I stopped playing saxophone because that’s not what the popular kids did
I was reluctant to join certain clubs because I thought I’d get made fun of by the “cool” kids
Well, after nine years of following the crowd, I started high school, said “screw that”, and just started doing the things I wanted to do. And guess what? That’s when I hit my stride. I was captain of two varsity sports teams, student body president, and kicked-ass in the hardest classes offered at our school.
Now, I know what you’re thinking…
AUSTIN PEAKED IN HIGH SCHOOL!
And to that I say…MAYBE! I WAS back to back homecoming king…
But here’s the thing. I think there’s a reason why I look back so fondly on my high school years. And it’s because I had a concrete Primary Aim.
What is a Primary Aim?
Your Primary Aim answers the following questions:
What do I value most?
What kind of life do I want?
What do I want my life to look like, to feel like?
Who do I wish to be?
In high school, my Primary Aim was this:
Get into the best possible undergraduate business program I could get into by pushing myself academically, athletically, and through pursuing extracurriculars.
Might sound cliche, but that was my aim! My fresh-into-high-school-14-year-old-self wanted nothing more than to attend the best college I could possibly get into. But, there was one problem:
My Primary Aim had a deadline: committing to a college.
So although it gave me purpose, once I committed to going to Rutgers—not the best business school on the planet, but certainly the most economical—I was right back to square one and had to come up with another Primary Aim.
So I graduated high school, committed to college, and my Primary Aim shifted to:
Get the best INTERNSHIP I can possibly get.
Which then turned into…
Getting the best JOB I can get.
We all know this path… So then you get—what you think is—your dream job, and then what? You’re no longer following the path society paved for you. YOU have to create your own path. YOU have to determine what success looks like. The crazy part?
Most people stop dreaming after they leave school. They join corporate america, chase promotion after promotion, and that’s it. They go through life without thinking about the big picture—without thinking about what they REALLY want to do in life.
Then they wake up 50 years from now saying:
“Man. I wish I had done more with my life.”
This is my biggest fear. And it’s actually one of the biggest regrets among people in their 90s…
Why having a Primary Aim is important
One year ago, Sahil Bloom interviewed dozens of 90-year olds asking one question:
“If you could speak to your 32-year old self, what advice would you give them?”
He then wrote a piece sharing Life Lessons from 1,000 Years. One bit of advice stuck out to me:
Taking no risk is the biggest risk you can take.
Regret from inaction is always more painful than regret from action.
The only way to do more, is by having some sort of a Primary Aim. Some sort of a vision for the life you want to create. Because if you don’t have that, how can you possibly be motivated to take action in the first place?
So that’s the reason why having a Primary Aim is important. It’s to decrease your likelihood of regret in the future. The last thing you want to happen is that you’re lying on your deathbed, kicking yourself for not doing more.
So how can YOU create your Primary Aim? One that is timeless? One that isn’t tied to some sort of arbitrary accomplishment like getting into a good college, or getting a good internship, or getting your “dream job”?
How to create your Primary Aim
Close your eyes.
The sun is shining, the birds are chirping, and the tulips have just started blooming. There’s a light breeze, but not strong enough for you to need a jacket. You look up and find yourself in the middle of a cemetery.
There’s a crowd of ~100 people ahead. There’s a funeral going on…
You walk over, making your way to the casket. It’s open.
You look down and see a familiar face. It’s you, laying there peacefully. It’s YOUR funeral. All of your family and friends are there to acknowledge your death and life achievements.
Open your eyes.
What do you want people to say about you?
Who do you want (or expect) to be there?
How do you want your story to be told?
The answers to these questions are your Primary Aim. It’s the things you want to be remembered for, the people you want to be surrounded by, and the stories you want people to tell about you.
This is NOT an easy exercise, so here are some questions to help get your gears turning.
What do I value most?
What do I want my eulogy to include?
What do I wish my day-to-day life to look like?
What type of person do I want to be with others in my life—family, friends, co-workers?
What do I want to be doing two years from now? Ten years? Twenty years?
What do I want to learn during my life—physically, mentally, spiritually, financially?
How much money will I need to do the things I wish to do? And when am I going to need that money?
My Primary Aim
I recently joined a men’s group called the Agora Guild. It’s a small group of dudes who believe personal growth and connections should be at the forefront of our lives. During our first meeting, we each shared our dream lives.
Some guys shared a quick paragraph—me.
While others shared 3 pages, vividly detailing their dream life one year, five years, and ten years from now.
I was inspired to say the least. And it made me realize I needed to get a bit more tactical with what I want out of life. This isn’t to say I haven’t thought about these things—the ideas are there—but I never took the time to gather my thoughts and create a document that details EVERYTHING.
This is something I’ll be working on for the next few days. I’ll append this post with a live document to my Primary Aim once it’s complete. But until then, I’d love to hear your ideas on your Primary Aim.
What do you want people to say about you at your funeral?
What stories do you want to create and tell throughout your life?
What people do you want to “do” life with?
Austin’s Recommendations
There’s nothing I nerd out on more than personal finance. Okay, maybe CrossFit… But I love jamming on personal finance too.
If you’re semi-interested in personal finance, you’ve heard of Mint—Intuit’s budgeting app they recently decided to shut down, which left me scrambling to find a new app!
Luckily, my boss is a huuuge personal finance guy and recommended I check out Monarch Money. So I used it for a month and fell in love with it. They make it super easy to categorize transactions and track your net worth.
I actually like it better than Mint.
If you want to try it out, Monarch is is offering a free 30 day trial. Grab it below and let me know what you think.