Level Up Your Life: How Leaders Transition to the Next Level

Periods of transition are those times in life where we feel torn between our past and the vision for our future. We feel confused, our identity is fragile, we hold on to old habits while we try to create new habits which conflict with old behaviors that we have not yet completely dropped. We see where we want to go, where we know we can get, but it seems we are taking one step forward and two steps back. We get frustrated, burnt out, and at times feel helpless to our urges and desires, which causes us to make bad decisions that perpetuate that downward spiral. Most people live out their lives in this constant struggle, never fully breaking through to the next level. In this article I will lay out a process to help leaders Level Up their lives.

Clarify Your Vision

Every successful leader has a clear vision of their future, and this is the first step to Level Up your life. You must clearly paint a picture of how your life will be in the next stage, your vision for your future, the life you want to create. What does the next level look like? What decisions will you have to make? What habits and behaviors will help you make those decisions? Define career goals, social goals, relationship goals, financial goals, and be as specific as possible. Create goals that intimidate you, push you. If your goals do not require you to level up, your goals are not big enough. Leveling Up is not incorporating a few good new habits into your routine, but rather, a comprehensive analysis of where you are in life, what is holding you back, and how to get to the next level. It is not stepping up the next rung of the ladder, but rather topping that ladder and moving on to the next ladder completely. Leveling Up requires a breakdown and analysis of the ego, honest assessments of the decisions that previously created positive results that are now holding you back, and development of an action plan to transition to that next level.

Don't Get Stuck in Transition

Common periods of transition exist when we transition from one age decade to the next. It can also be transitioning careers, spiritual awakenings, moving to a new city. It can be triggered by an epiphany so strong that the world no longer looks the same. I struggled with the transition out of my 20s and into my 30s. My 20s were full of discovery, experimenting, following my heart, trying different careers, cross country moves, and unhealthy habits that didn’t have near the effect on my young body as they do now. Throughout my 20s I developed understanding and gained life experience that needed to stick with me during my transition into my 30s, but also behaviors and habits that worked for me in my 20s that would no longer serve their purpose and sometimes downright derail my 30s. I had a vision for my life that required me in my 30s to focus more on my professional life, on mental health and stress management, on physical health and continued learning, on bettering myself so I could better help others. For the first few years of my 30s, I had the disillusioned idea that I could figure out a way to live the two lives concurrently, behave at times as if I was still in my 20s, and at times of how I needed to behave in my 30s. This was my ego talking, and that talk would continue to hurt me until I was able to break down my ego to gain better understanding of myself to determine what was fueling my decisions and behaviors.

Get Your Ego Out of the Way

The goal of breaking down your ego is to be able to analyze why you are choosing to make decisions that no longer serve you, that are holding you back from Leveling Up. If you still find yourself going out to bars much too often and can see it is holding you back, you must figure out why you are choosing to do so in a way that develops deep understanding of yourself. The reason cannot simply be “my friends are going”, that is the surface reason. Ask more questions, dig deeper, and be honest with yourself. Why do you feel you need to go everywhere your friends are going? Do you have attachment issues? Is this a way to curb your insecurity, by reinforcing to yourself that you have friends, and by going out to bars to meet those friends, that solidifies you are “liked”? What are ways you can serve that need to feel liked that are not also detrimental to your quest to Level Up? Are you going out to bars because you have alcoholic tendencies and drinking out at bars is “social” where drinking home alone feels more “alcoholic”? You must have those honest conversations with yourself about what is really driving your behavior. Only then will you have the breakthrough required to Level Up.

Understand Your SELF

Therapy is one of the best practices any leader can put effort toward. Therapy should not be considered only in periods of intense emotional turmoil (breakups, divorce, death, trauma, etc), but rather be considered a constant tool to help better understand the self and what emotional triggers influence our decisions. We are emotional beings, that is fact. Therapy helps us understand ourselves and how to control our emotions. Without that emotional control, we will at times make decisions based on emotion instead of logic, which typically result in behaviors that do not allow us to Level Up. Our good habits and decisions can be derailed by our urges and desires, which are fueled by our emotions. Until we develop that deep and honest understanding of our self, we have no hope in breaking down and analyzing our ego in a way that will allow us to transition to the next level. Therapy is one of the best, if not the best, way to accomplish this.

What Serves You, What Does Not?

Once you get yourself to that place of honesty and understanding what drives your decisions, begin listing your habits and behaviors and determine which will serve you in your quest to Level Up, and which will make it harder or impossible to Level Up. Write them down. Systemize it, divide the list into “those that serve you” and “those that do not serve you”. Accept your findings, do not sugar coat them, do not try to justify bad habits, and do not beat yourself up because of negative findings. When you have your ego in check and are able to be honest with yourself, the answers become very clear and obvious.

Next Level List

Identify what habits and behaviors are missing from the "those that serve you" list that are required to help you level up and add them to the “next level” list. If you are wanting to get in shape, but some sort of exercise is not on your list, add it. Really concentrate and be honest with yourself on what habits and behaviors you will need to implement in your life in order to make decisions to Level Up. You will begin to notice the items on the “do not serve you” list are making it very difficult to change your behavior in order to level up. That realization should help encourage you to stop those habits and behaviors; it is now crystal clear those habits and behaviors must stop or you will never level up. (For further learning on how to develop good habits and stop the bad ones, I highly recommend the life changing Atomic Habits, by James Clear).

Develop Your Action Plan

You have now collected all the data you need to develop an action plan to successfully Level Up. Make plans on how you will stop those behaviors and habits on the “do not serve you” list, how to reinforce and take the items on the “serve you” list and incorporate them even more strongly into your life, and what steps it will take to incorporate those behaviors and habits on the “next level” list. Do not bite off more than you can chew. This action plan could take months or years. The important part is that you have a plan, you are holding yourself accountable to that plan, and you are constantly evaluating it to ensure you are giving yourself the best chance to level up. If you are trying to get in shape, start out with 2 hours of gym time a week. After 2 weeks, move it to 3 hours. After a month, move it to 4 hours and hire a personal trainer. After 6 months, incorporate bike riding into your routine. After 9 months, start planning to run a 5k. After a year, a half marathon. Most leaders allow our ambition to set up unrealistic expectations for ourselves. It is great to have big goals, and we must remain realistic in how much time and what it will take to accomplish those goals. Do not go from not exercising at all to wanting to run a marathon in a month. That is setting yourself up for failure.

It Is Time To Level Up!

I encourage all of those leaders that feel like they cannot break through to the next level to develop a plan and hold yourself accountable to that plan. Once you do establish this habit, it will become part of your life, and you will be in a constant state of leveling up. That is how successful leaders achieve their goals, how we leaders can truly succeed. Without it, we only try.?