Can you believe we are almost halfway through 2024?! It feels like my wife and I just moved into our apartment in Miami, but that was over six months ago.
So much has happened since then. We found a church, made new friends, traveled to Europe, competed in races, dealt with some health issues, and even started these letters.
Life has been full.
But it’s also flown by.
It’s crazy how fast life can become – especially with packed schedules and busy lives. Days, weeks, and months can fly by without us even knowing. That’s why it is extremely important to be intentional with our time and plan things out in advance.
Planning the big things first
Jess Itzler has a concept I really like.
He sells a “big ass calendar” that outlines the entire year. I’ve never used it, but I’ve used his approach of scheduling your major, and year-defining, events first and then filling in the remaining time with other activities.
But he doesn’t talk about what those big items should be. Today, I want to talk about what I believe are the two main categories: misogis and must-go-sees.
Misogis
There is an old Japanese principle called a “misogi”. These intense rituals were used to renew the spirit and mind and a season that is to come. Michael Easter repopularized the term (at least in my circles of the internet) with his book The Comfort Crisis.
The TL;DR is that you should go out into the world once a year and do something really really hard. Like, “I may not be able to do it”, or “I may die” hard.
The point is to push ourselves and explore how far our limits can be stretched and illicit meaningful change and growth through hardship.
I, unintentionally, had my misogi earlier this year when I completed my Half Ironman in May.
I had gotten injured six weeks before the event and couldn’t run. In response, I almost pulled out of the race, but instead, I said I would try. The race ended up being extremely emotional for me. Halfway through the run, I said to myself “I’m going to finish” and held back tears until I crossed the finish line.
I wrote more about the race in a previous letter here.
That event pushed my limits, reset my understanding of what I was capable of, and even more importantly, revealed what I wanted deep down.
It also showed me the value of doing something really hard, and it’s a practice I intend to continue to incorporate into my life every year.
I think it’s a practice we could all benefit from and one I encourage you to incorporate into your life.
You won’t regret it.
Must-go-sees
Must-go-sees is a term I’m coining to define life-defining experiences.
These can be places you travel to or things you choose to witness or experience firsthand. They can be tangible or visible, but they can also be intangible and experiential. But they are big, heavy, impactful things.
They are the flip side of misogi’s
Misogis reveal something inside. Must-go-sees expand your vision of something outside yourself.
The most obvious example of this is travel where you can see different parts of the world and experience new cultures. One of my big must-go-sees this year has been our trip to Portugal where we are spending four weeks working, traveling, seeing new places, and experiencing new food and cultures.
But it doesn’t need to be travel.
Must-go-sees are simply purposeful experiences. You can go to see them, or you can purposefully experience them “as you are going”.
Let me give some examples:
1. Traveling to a new place
I already gave this example above, but it’s an easy example of a “must-go-see”. It is a purposeful action that takes you to a new place to experience something you haven’t experienced before.
2. Seeing what your body is capable of
Here is the first non-tangible example. A must-go-see can be something you work to see or create. Maybe this is the year you decide to see what your body is capable of. Maybe this is the year you want to see how fit you can become or the year you want to see how shredded you can get. Unlike a misogi which is a singular event, a must-go-see can be a prolonged intention that lasts multiple months.
That said, I’d give you bonus points if you combined must-go-sees and a misogi.
3. Seeing or discovering what excites you or brings you joy
I think with the business of life we can become background characters in our own lives.
We can go to work, the gym, get married, have kids, and still never really be fulfilled or do things that bring us joy. Of course, those things can do that – I love my job, exercising is my passion, and I can’t wait to have kids. These are all amazing things, but if you feel lost or directionless taking time to discover and see what makes your life full, meaningful, or joyful is an admirable pursuit.
Action Plan: What to do with this information?
Maybe you’re like me and planned both a misogi and a must-go-see in the first half of the year, or maybe you have something big planned for the back half of the year, but most likely one or both of these concepts are new to you.
If so, I encourage you to pause and think about big meaningful things you can add to your calendar in the next year (12 months)
Both a “misogi” and a “must-go-see”.
These are the types of events that we look back on and remember our lives by. They are the defining moments and the ones that build our character and legacy.
If you aren’t sure where to begin, or what you could challenge yourself with I’d like to leave you with a few actions things:
- Spend time reflecting on the big things in your life. Try spending an afternoon writing down a list of the biggest events or defining moments from each year of your life. Reflect on them and decide which ones
- Choose a Misogi and a Must-go-see. Pick two big things. One physical (misogi) and one experiential (must-go-see) and put them on a calendar and tell someone about it. You don’t have to know how you’ll do it, or the details, but it’s important to have them on the calendar. Things that aren’t on the calendar never happen.
- Not sure, send me a message! Whether as a reply to this letter or on social, I’m happy to connect with you and talk about what a misogi or must-go-see could be in your life.
