Change Your Life in One Week

Think about the domino effect — the smallest tap against the first domino creates incredible momentum, enough to knock down all of the other dominoes.

Success works the same way. Sometimes all you need is the slightest push (and a bit of luck) to create enough momentum to break through and get to the next level — and ultimately, all the way to the top.

But, let’s face it, creating momentum isn’t easy. When you have other responsibilities (a full-time job, family, personal commitments, and so on), it’s difficult to take the consistent massive action that you need to take to build enough momentum … and actually sustain it.

The busyness of life can quickly take over, leading days, weeks, months, and decades to pass by without much notice. Suddenly, your 55-year-old self is stuck wondering what happened to the dreams, vision, and goals that your 25-year-old self had vowed to achieve. “What happened to that passion I used to have?”

Nothing is worse than getting to the end of your road with a list of regrets instead of a list of accomplishments. That’s why the habit of implementing Success Sprints once a year is critical.

What exactly is a Success Sprint? It is one week each year when you clear your calendar, take time off work (take an unpaid vacation if you have to), and invest all of your time, energy, and effort into taking some type of massive action toward your mission and legacy.

It is a time to focus on finally writing that book, starting your blog, or taking the acting boot camp that you have been dreaming about for years.

It’s your time to organize your finances, meditate, eat more healthfully, and reboot your life so that you can begin heading down a path that is more aligned with who you are supposed to be.

I know what you are probably thinking:

“I don’t have time for this.”

“My job won’t let me take the time off.”

“I have kids to take care of.”

“I’m a caregiver, and I can’t get out of my responsibilities.”

These are all challenges that make scheduling a Success Sprint even more difficult, and all the more worthwhile. I’ve seen people overcome crazy obstacles to create the life of their dreams. It’s your life, and you get only one. You have to ask yourself, “Knowing that my time on this earth can run out at any second, isn’t a week of time to live my most authentic life worth it?”

Let me share a quick personal story on this subject (if you don’t want to read the story, which is quite long, skip right down to the outline for how to create a Success Sprint). Back in 2013, I was stressed to the max, working at a tech job that wasn’t in alignment with my higher purpose. In this job, we had implementations, which pretty much meant that we had to work around the clock to refresh a client’s wellness program by their renewal date.

I’ll never forget this — I had been trying to find a way to take time off pretty much all year. My boss continued to give me the runaround and make excuses about why there was too much work to be done, so I wouldn’t be able to take time off. I even started to feel guilty that by taking time off, I would be letting down my team and dumping my workload on someone else.

Finally, I was almost at the point of having a breakdown. I booked a ticket to Peru, and simply told my boss that I would be traveling at the end of June and beginning of July. Needless to say, she was extremely upset. One of our biggest clients had a July 1 contract renewal, and it was unthinkable that I would even consider going on vacation at this time.

I literally said “f— it” and decided to go anyway. Two years of my life had slipped away with this company, and I wasn’t a single step closer to achieving any of my personal goals. In fact, I had noticed that I was sliding backward! I was unhappier than ever; I was stressed, depressed, and insanely anxious.

Was deciding to go on the trip selfish? Yes, probably. But at some point, you have to audaciously take a stand for the person you want to be and not cowardly slip into the limited vision that others have for you.

The plot twist is that I actually never went to Peru (shhhh … don’t tell anyone). Even though I had paid for my ticket and planned the trip, the night before I was scheduled to go, I couldn’t sleep at all. I realized that by going on the trip,I was simply running away from the nightmare of a life that I had created. I was stuck in a pattern of blaming others for my situation, instead of taking full responsibility for the actions that had led me to this point. I was the one who had taken this job. I was the one spending more money than I needed to, so I remained trapped in a job that I hated. I was the one complaining, whining, and moaning … without taking action to make things different.

I woke up the next morning, and I missed my flight. Instead of using the trip to escape my life, I decided to double down and get to work on creating the life of my dreams. I organized my very first Success Sprint and decided to work my ass off to start my business, enroll in acting classes, and begin the journalism certificate program at UCLA.

For that next week, I worked day and night to build Tusodo.com, my very first business. It wasn’t easy, but my only other option was to spend the next 10 years of my life dealing with the water torture of living a life that I absolutely hated. I decided that the short-term pain and sacrifice were well worth the long-term freedom of living my dream life. Without that initial Success Sprint, I’m not too sure I would be where I am today.

So, how do you organize your own Success Sprint? Here’s an outline.