The Supreme Life Coach

      Almost nineteen years into my early retirement, I've realized that the total freedom this lifestyle offers can be a double-edged sword.

      You've heard me express my enthusiasm about the positives: having the ability to raise my son from birth until his eighteenth birthday without any compromises. Additionally, I've been able to dedicate thousands of hours to other pursuits I cherish: family, health, friends, adventures, building projects, and even writing the occasional blog post. I have no complaints about any of this.

      However, if I may indulge in a brief moment of self-pity about first-world problems, even this seemingly perfect life has one drawback: I never have to do anything I don't want to do.

      To many, this sounds like a dream realized. After all, when you couple complete freedom with ample financial resources, life becomes an endless playground of self-actualization, right?

      Well, maybe yes, maybe no. In truth, it depends on the individual.

      Freedom and wealth expose a person’s core strengths and weaknesses, resulting in a spectrum ranging from “Endless drugs and booze on the couch” to “Establish and manage nonprofit foundations that employ thousands to research and invest in medical advancements and clean energy.”

      For the majority of my journey thus far, I’ve naturally found a balance. My role as a father was incredibly intense during the first decade, but I still managed to build and restore several houses in the neighborhood, take many exciting trips, give talks, create videos, and write hundreds of blog posts.

      However, in recent years, I’ve begun to slow down, and it’s increasingly challenging to gather the motivation and focus to engage in these activities regularly.

      Instead of hopping around construction sites or laser-focused on the keyboard to finish an article I was eager to share with you, I discovered myself retreating to the couch earlier each afternoon, distracted by my phone and wishing I had the energy and concentration for more enjoyable endeavors.

      In response, I decided to fight back by learning more about health and wellness, attempting to study and train my way to increased energy, focus, and motivation. You’ve seen some results of this in the articles I've shared about daily habits, avoiding excessive comfort, and more.

      These strategies truly work, provided you take the insights and put them into practice. That’s where the issue lies:

      I continued to learn effective new things and successfully integrate them into my life. They would work momentarily, but over time my mind would conjure various excuses to avoid consistent application, leaving me with abundant knowledge yet insufficient accomplishments to show for it.

      Then, just a few months ago, I recognized that I had been undermining my own progress by turning my greatest advantage into a disadvantage:

      I was overindulging in my freedom to avoid doing things I didn’t want to do.

      See, freedom is fantastic if it liberates you from leaving your kids at 5 am to endure an hour's commute through traffic to sit in an office for nine hours. But that same freedom becomes wasted if, instead, you merely park your kids in front of cheap cartoons while you scroll through Facebook all day.

      It should be utilized to engage in pursuits that hold greater value than the job you've just left behind. If you can’t accomplish that, you might as well keep the job.

      This was precisely what I was doing, all while lying to myself. I gravitated toward easy tasks, like maintaining the house or hanging out with nearby friends, while avoiding the more challenging activities—those demanding more planning, energy, or focus. Yet, those are precisely what enables me to lead the life I enjoy the most.

      Let’s take workouts as a straightforward example. I know that, minute for minute, this is the single most effective activity anyone can engage in, as it significantly enhances every other aspect of life. But even with that awareness, I still fell into this pattern:

      "I want to have a solid weight-training workout today. But I don’t feel like working out because it’s hard. So I’ll try to make it easier for myself. I’ll pick the perfect time of day when the weather is nice and my energy is high. I’ll prepare my gym setup the night before. And when the perfect moment arrives, I’ll hit the gym!"

      But, truthfully, that moment didn’t always materialize. Some weeks I’d manage it 2-3 times, while others I’d get “busy” and make excuses, like “at least I walked a lot today.” Some days I’d have a great workout, but when I logged it, I’d see that the last one was over a week ago.

      The outcome of this lack of consistency was exactly what you would expect: lackluster fitness.

      Then something shifted, and I discovered a far better method to ensure those workouts happen. It involves replacing the lengthy, self-sabotaging dialogue above with a simpler one:

      "I want to work out today. I don’t feel like it. AHA!! I JUST CA