Following mainstream advice, walk the mainstream path, and you’ll end up with mainstream results. If you want to be average do what average people do, if you want to be above average then do what above average people do. It’s one of those things that sounds so simple and it is but it’s one thing to understand something on a conceptual level and another to be able to apply it to our own lives and benefit from it.
For example we all know that if we want to get in shape we need to eat right and workout, pretty simple. And that we need to do these things on a consistent basis in order for it to work. Yet how many people actual do it? Again it’s one thing to have a conceptual understanding of something but another to bring it forth in one’s life. Maybe not most but many people, especially those that read and pay attention to the world around them, have the majority of the answers they need to get what they want out of life.
What they don’t have is the follow through to implement that knowledge in their life on a consistent basis and therefore reap the rewards. This applies to many different areas in life but today we’re going to be talking about the importance of taking the time to get off the beaten path. Now what does this mean? And how many facets of life does it apply to? We’ll discuss that and more.
Getting Off The Beaten Path…Why Do It?
Before we get into the how of getting off the beaten path we should take a moment to discuss the why. We discussed a little bit about this above. If you’re always on the main road then you’ll always end up with main road results, meaning average results. You have to get off the beaten path to get anything different, anything good, anything above average. And if that’s not reason enough there’s more.
The main path is going to be tailored to mainstream tastes and aspirations. There will be no uniqueness there. And for you to get what you want out of life and live the life that you want there will be nothing for you. To get the unique benefits and experiences that you want from life, to fully develop as a man, to become the warrior poet, renaissance man, or whatever your ideal is, you’re going to have to get off the beaten path.
Self-development is off the beaten path, achievement is off the beaten path, hell even happiness is off the beaten path. No one is perfectly square and going to fit into the square hole of the main stream path. So not only do you need to wander to get good things, above average things, but you also have to do it to get unique things, things that are tailored to you and what you want out of life.
How To Get Off The Beaten Path
But now how do you actual do this in real life? Well let’s take a look at one of the most important, if not the most important, facet of your life, and that is your habits. More than anything else your habits are what are going to make or break you. What you do day in and day out for years on end. Now let’s look at what the average person, the main stream path’s, habits are. We have watching TV, browsing social media, numbing oneself with tobacco, alcohol, drugs, or porn, we have lack of physical activity and mental stimulation. We have just coast and numb yourself to get to the weekend where you numb yourself more before you have to do it all over again.
We have being a follower and never questioning anything. That’s the mainstream path and the mainstream path’s habits. Now let’s look at how we can go “off the path” and get what we want from life. Make some sort of physical activity a habit whether camping, going to the gym, rugby, whatever. Read books. Eat a healthy diet. Go to a new place once every other week, go to a museum, a park, a nature preserve, a restaurant with a cuisine you’ve never had. And so on and so forth. Seek out new experiences and walk off the beaten path.
So what this means practically for you is look for new things to do, to try, ways to challenge yourself. I once did took a tango class just for this purpose. I only did it for three months, which is what I said I would do, but it was something very different for me and had me trying something new, and who knows it might have made me a little better boxer. Try something outside your comfort zone, something new, make forging new experiences a habit. Get off the beaten path and find all of the wonderful things that you were meant to discover.
Average is death anymore, in any facet of life. So get off the beaten path and you’ll be anything but average.
