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Donegan Update - March'235/4/2023
Given we're three months in, I thought it was time for a Donegan update and hopefully this will be the inspiration that you need to either keep on going towards your dreams or reignite the fire inside you.
General Donegan update
Do you do a regular check-in on your life to see how you are doing? Do you ask how you are doing in each of the major life areas? Do you know which way you are heading?
Once a month, Katie and I check in on the different life areas and how we are progressing. This process allows us to see what is going on, to tackle problems before they happen and to focus forward and proactively on making cool shit happen. As part of the Donegan update this time I thought I would share with you my process and the life areas I check in on. Here are the areas I use to think about my life... 
I look at 9 different life areas
This helps me to think through the different areas of my life. If someone asks you how life is, you will probably answer "fine" without really thinking. If we sat down and I asked you a bunch of questions about each of these areas we could have a really good conversation about your life and direction. My process is to take each area of life and give it a number out of 10. 10 being perfect and 1 being emergency, shit is broken. Then I write a paragraph about what is going on in that area and the final question I ask is "If I keep going like this am I happy with the destination?" This process takes about an hour and I do it once a month to examine my life and what is happening in it. it normally sparks some ideas, some change and rejuvenated motivation to work on my world and improve it. I will share one example with you Health update - how is your energy?
Current update on Health
Score: 7 Description: My body fat percentage is 19.2% which is in the healthy range for men (yay). I have been going to the gym regularly and I am re-gaining muscle. My flexibility is a concern as my hip aches sometimes and my lower back too. My diet needs improving whilst travelling and I am unhappy with the size of my belly when I look down. Direction: If I keep going in this direction I am happy. I am putting on muscle and getting stronger and healthier. Only thing that is not going in the right direction is flexibility. The belly isn't a real concern as it is going in the right direction! Action: What am I going to do about this? We are meeting with a dietician in a few weeks to work on diet and health and I need to start stretching a bit more each day. This simple process each month helps me to look at what is going on and work out if I am happy or not. if I am not happy then I start to make changes and focus on what I can do to improve things. Last year I had a few health issues. I broke my hand, nearly fell off a cliff in the Andes mountains, got sucked into a man hole cover in Bogota, caught skin infections in the pool in Mexico and suffered a little bit. Not exciting stuff but shit happens. By the time I arrived in Argentina last summer I was in a bit of a mess and my health was suffering. I was not any heavier but I was losing muscle and fitness. I was tired and although I looked slim I was fatter than before. This had to change. Since then we started running on the beach in Brazil, I joined the gym and health has been on an upwards trajectory. Recently we did a body scan and for the first time in a long time I am sub 20% body fat which is in the healthy range for a man! YAY! Health is on a good trajectory at the moment for me. I am writing this part of the post to remind me that I set health as my number one value whilst we were running the Extraordinary Life Course in December. Without health you don't have the energy to do anything else. I am committing to continue to focus on health. I am committing to working out, running, eating better and looking after myself. Which way is your health heading? If you were to draw a line for your body fat which was is it heading? If you were to chart an imaginary line to show how much energy you have which way is it heading? One of the questions Katie and I love to ask each other is "If we continue this way are we happy with where we will end up?" The answer for my health when we were in Argentina was I am heading towards an early grave and that didn't sound exciting. It was time to change and fast. Are you happy with the way you are heading with your health? What might you be able to do to improve it this week? Sleep more? Eat more vegetables and less processed foods? Exercise ten minutes more? If you haven't read my article The Miserly Millionaire make sure you do because there's some lessons in there that we can all learn from! Life review
If you get one thing out of this article it would be this. Do a life review and work out if you are heading in the right direction or not. Take a moment and check to see where you are and what you are doing. Don't become a cautionary tale like the miserly millionaire!
That being said, here is a bit more on the Donegan goals and projects that we are working on at the moment. At the end I have written out how to do a life review yourself. Read on The Extraordinary Book
Back in March last year I started a mini-experiment to write a book. Working with a cool book coach named J, I recorded some podcast episodes, created a course and wrote four chapters of the book. I really enjoyed doing the project.
Then things happened and life changed. Has that ever happened to you? You are progressing nicely and then something else happens and a well intentioned project gets shelved? The podcast (Rebel Entrepreneur) moved platforms after some drama and I focused on creating episodes for that. We ran FI Chautauqua, ran Rebel Finance School for 5,000 people, created the Extraordinary Life Course, fought the First Order on the Disney Galactic Starcruiser and the year disappeared without further progress on the book. Current Extraordinary Book status:
I am super happy with the progress but then I got distracted by other things and haven't come back to it. This is the year of the books so I am going to focus on making it happen. Katie is going on a Yoga and Flexibility retreat for 9 days and I have the ambitious goal of writing a chapter a day whilst she is on the retreat and finishing the first draft in that time frame. Do you think my goal is realistic? Do you think I have a chance of doing that? Rebel Finance School 2023
Katie and I are thinking a lot about Rebel Finance School 2023 (RFS) and when to do it. We have had so many ideas for new tools, new articles, re-arranging some of the sessions, sharper and clearer ways to explain things. You also gave us SO MANY Ideas from the feedback forms which we have loved reading. We're planning how and when to launch the course for 2023. Which neatly leads me on to....
Did you know that The Rebel School now has a building?
This is Henry presenting at the opening event in November. We have a small stadium seating area where we think about 50 people can join us live and we will also broadcast RFS'23 live on YouTube so you can watch from wherever you are in the world.
It will also be a cool space for us to hold meetups as well! If you want to be on RFS 2023 then make sure you sign up here so that you get the updates about the event! We'll email the whole mailing list when we have more details! Travelling with purpose update
Recently we wrote about travelling with purpose and how we, The Donegans, didn't want to just travel the world, we wanted to make a different whilst doing it! Thanks to your messages we have planned a meetup with an RFS participant in Japan, we're organising a talk in Bali, running a workshop on presenting at a Toastmasters club in Japan, speaking at the Invest in Japan meetup and have a few cool things planned for the summer in the UK!
If you want to have us come and help your group, help your company with a presentation or something else then read the travel with purpose article and fill out the form! Alan's four short term goals
Whilst I was running the Extraordinary Life Course in November and December, I did the goal setting process that I taught on the course. I set myself four goals. The four goals were:
Those were my four goals. Did you set any goals? How are you doing? One of the secrets to progress is to make those goals discrete so that you know if you make it or not! Update on my goals so far:
I first read a Tony Robbins book when I was 21 years old. It changed my life and I am forever grateful for his content. I have been to Unleash the Power Within twice and love his courses. His signature course is Date With Destiny. I had never been able to justify spending that amount of money on a training course before and had put it off. Then the pandemic happened and I was wondering if he was ever going to run it live again. I didn't want to do the course virtually, I wanted an in-person experience. I looked on the website and they said the course was virtual but being held in Florida. I thought to myself "Why are they telling you where the course is, if it is online?" So I called Tony's company and spoke to them about UPW and told them I wanted to do the course in person. To my surprise the lady on the other end of the phone told me that they weren't advertising it but there were a few tickets to come to Tony Robbins's private studio in Palm Beach, Florida to see the event live. I jumped at the chance and booked the tickets. Simon, Katie and I will be going to Florida in December this year to go on Date with Destiny! I am super excited although it currently feels like a long way off! Next stop for me is to focus on the book and then choose some new goals to work on! The joy is in the process of doing things not completing them. So I like to have a list of things I am working on. These are my sources of purpose and joy. What could you do to move your goals forwards today? Now, over to Katie for her to give you an update on what's going on with her... Katie life update
In some ways the first couple of months of 2023 have been wonderful. In other ways they’ve been some of the most challenging I can remember.
Alan and I have been arguing A LOT. Yes, we are normal humans who have arguments just like everyone else. One of the things we’ve been struggling with is that Alan wants to do cool stuff, I say I’m in on doing it with him and then I come up with stories, excuses and avoidances to hijack and sabotage our progress. I wrote about this in our recent “why oh why” article. Teaching the Extraordinary Life Course at the end of 2022 helped me to become more and more aware of my unhelpful stories and how misaligned I can be between what I say I want and what I actually want. I’ve also learned that the joy comes from committing and throwing my body, heart and soul into something. You can always change the “thing” to something else later. I didn’t realise how much and how easily I slip into victim mode which takes away my ability and desire to make any changes in my life. Awareness is the first step and now I can do something about it! So that’s been (some of) the challenges. Onto the more positive stuff… what’s been wonderful?
I’m so excited for what Alan and I are going to create together over the coming months. I’m putting aside worrying about what other people think. I’m focussing on what I want and looking after me. I’m using my best energy at the start of the day on what’s important to me and my goals and what I want to build and create. Other people’s requests or replying to emails and messages can wait. Time to put myself first. Saying this to you feels very uncomfortable. Society has programmed me to believe that looking after myself first is selfish. But i know that when I do put myself first, not only do I feel happier, healthier and more fulfilled, but everyone else gets more from me too. I’m able to give more, I’m WAY more pleasant to be around and I have the energy to create and inspire others to live their version of an extraordinary life. This is why I’m so excited about the future. I’m so proud of what Alan and I have achieved despite me and us not being lined up. Imagine what’s possible now! Watch out world, the Donegans are coming! The Donegans' Blog
Hi. Alan back now! So Katie has officially joined the gang and is helping with the blog! YAY. I'm so excited to be working with her on this! She has proofed, read and added to all the recent articles and we have such big plans.
Some of the things we are going to be working on coming up are:
We have big plans and in the next article, which Katie is working on right now, we have a big announcement and a request for some help! We really wanted to kick our support for you, content creation and blog to the next level this year! We love writing articles for you. We love it when you write to us and tell us about your financial journeys, what you have done after the Extraordinary Course and the businesses you are building. It has inspired us to create and do even more. Look out for the next article. If you are on the mailing list we will email you about it. If you aren't on the mailing list please join so we can share even more with you! Thanks for reading the Donegan update! You know lots about us now! Join the mailing list and look out for the next big announcement. Keeping reading on below for the explanation of how to do the life review that I told you about at the start of the article. Homework 9 Life Areas: Extraordinary Life Course
Your home work is to do a life review. On a piece of paper or on your computer, list out the 9 life areas and then answer the following questions:
You could do this as a table in your notebook if you want to, or just journal your thoughts out in your notebook! Obviously I created a OneNote with pictures for each area (I like pictures) that we fill out once a month! You can have any life you want if you are wiling to pay the price up front and in full. The price is focus, energy and effort in most cases. Take the time to consciously focus on your life and create your own version of extraordinary! Thanks for reading and let us know what you think in the comments. Love Katie and Alan |
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