What’s REALLY important to you? (here’s mine)

Recently we had a discussion in The Clandestine Round Table about what’s most important to you, and how you’re spending your time.

Taking time to mediate upon a) what’s most important to you and b) where you’re actually spending your time and energy makes for a valuable mental audit and thought exercise everyone should do.

If it comes out that you’re not spending time on what’s most important to you, then you know you’ve got room for improvement, and worldbuilding to do.

So, without further ah-dew, the five most important things in my life are…(in no particular order):

1. Worldbuilding

As I wrote in one a past email, I’ve come to grips with the fact that I am NOT an entrepreneur. Rather, I’m a Worldbuilder. Slowly but surely I’m pulling together the pieces of my ideal world, and slotting them into place. Naturally, this takes a good deal of time, mental, and emotional effort.

Two-and-a-half years ago I was building my world in a foolish way—spending 10-12 hours each day alternating between couch and desk writing articles and creating programs, or waking up at 330am to sling lattes at Starbucks for 8 hours before cramming in 6 or so hours on my own projects around prepping for bodybuilding shows.

These days, I’ve hammered into my skull that my productive creative output tops out at around 4 hours each day. So, depending on how much High vs. Low ROI work I have each day, I spend 4-6 hours/day on my worldbuilding adventures.

While I suspect I could grow at a quicker rate if I extended my working hours to 6-8 hours/day, the truth is I simply don’t want to work that much, and I know it would come at the cost of sacrificing time on everything below.

2. Ye Old Physique

Fitness is, and always has been, a massive part of my life. I’ve always understood it’s physical + mental benefits, and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t love being reasonably rhino-jacked and dick-skin shredded.

Thanks to working the same coach for coming up on three years (there’s a lesson in there!), we’ve dialled in my “process” (I struggle to call it a program) to the point where it’s extremely low maintenance, my sessions aren’t marathons, and I’m able to balance training with yoga (which I’ve discovered I enjoy equally, if not more). Between near-daily walks, and alternating yoga with lifting from day-to-day, I spend 90-120 minutes each day on ye old physique.

3. Alicia

When I moved to Vancouver last November, I remember walking through my new castle thinking:

“I’ve got everything I’ve been working towards the past two years—a nice apartment in a city I’ve always wanted to live in, complete control over my time, and a growing business that supports me and my desire to travel. All that’s missing is someone to share it with.”

That someone ended up being Alicia, and this ties into my current worldbuilding adventures. At present, much of Alicia’s time and energy is demanded by a high volume of client emails, other people’s problems, and check-ins to sort through. Spending all day answering emails is not part of our long-term vision, nor what she wants to do.

To that, right now, the main goal of my worldbuilding adventures is to get us into a place where she has more time to spend on what she loves (music and playing violin), as well as freeing more time to spend together.

There’s a distinct difference between being sat next to each other in a coffee shop working or training at the same time, and actually spending focused time together.

4. Recovery (Mental, Physical, Spiritual)

If you ask any of my few remaining fitness clients, they’ll confirm that I place recovery above all else.

Across all mediums, you can only progress as much as you can recover. Extending that, if you’re not recovering, you’re not progressing.

These days I’m quite good at doing so with my body (the training split I stick to helps a lot), but I do struggle to make time for mental and spiritual recovery. I’m working towards doing something each day—whether it’s reading, catching up on sleep, taking a long walk, sitting in a cafe with an espresso and thinking, or wandering through stores in search of new candles—but my current reality is that it’s closer to every third or fourth day.

5. Relationships (Chosen & Blood Family, Friends)

At the beginning of 2018 I set out with a mission to focus not on creating new relationships, but on taking the ones already blossoming, and double down on them. I wanted quality and depth over breadth. This meant traveling to events, making the effort to meet long-time online friends in-person, and taking the initiative to keep conversation going and deepen said relationships. For most of the year I did a great job of this, and I’m seeing the fruits of doing so continue to grow and spread. It’s tough to put a specific time allotment on this because it’s simply something I did with consistency.

However, lately I feel like I’ve fallen off on this a bit. In part due to travelling a lot and routine being thrown off, and in part due to being mentally tired and getting lazy.

This focus is something I should, can, and will do better on.

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My takeaway from this long overdue audit of my time, energy, and what’s important:

While I’m on the right track, there’s still a disconnect between where my time currently goes, and where I want it to go in the future.

Getting there will take growing The Sorcerers Guild world, a concentrated effort to nurture relationships, and building recovery into each of my days.

Later in the thread, Round Table member and Sorcerers Guild subscriber Tara chimed in with:

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“To be honest, this group is the only reason I’m still on Facebook. What I just posted into this group of strangers is something I would never post for my ‘friends’ to see.

I just want to make my life better – and this group is full of other people who want to do the same. I can’t even begin to explain how empowering it’s been to know there’s a bunch of  other entrepreneurs who are facing the same struggles as I am.

So for this group, I thank you [Alicia] and Alex, and what happens within it, I thank everyone else too.”

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You see, there’s more to worldbuilding than earning six-figures, launching new products, and fighting the good fight to build your business and earn your freedom.

Equally important is your mindset, the kind of people you surround yourself with—either virtually or physically—and who you chose to learn from.

The sorcerous world I’m building is for driven, ambitious, self-improvement minded worldbuilders who refuse to settle.

If that’s you, check out The Sorcerers Guild paper & ink newsletter here:

http://sorcerersguildnewsletter.com

Yours sorcerously,

Alexander Mullan

My mystical spells, and sorcerous daily emails are helping Apprentices leave their soul-sucking day job behind, build their own business, unlock unprecedented levels of freedom, and build their ideal world.

To gain access to my daily sorcerous mutterings, enter your primary email below, then hit ‘I’M IN.

I solemnly swear to only use your email address to deliver actionable advice to aid your worldbuilding adventures.