What’s Your Next Challenge? Raising the Barr Weekly Memo: Issue 196

I love taking on new challenges. In fact, I’m a firm believer that when we face challenges, we dramatically improve ourselves, in both our professional and personal lives. But not everyone seems to agree. I frequently come across entrepreneurs, consultants, and other individuals who avoid challenges like the plague. They’re content with the status quo, resigned to being “just good enough,” and reluctant to take any rewarding risks at work, or at home.

This type of complacency can be devastating to one’s creativity, ambition, and overall success. To avoid it myself, I’ve long held the mindset of continually asking myself, “What’s the next challenge?” In this way, I routinely check in with my goals and dreams, and don’t allow myself to get too comfortable with my current situation.

If you don’t challenge yourself about your next work project, life dream, or career ambition, life becomes stagnant. You never break through the “just good enough” fog for long enough to see your true potential—and realize it fully. The greatest innovators in the world constantly challenge themselves and push themselves to the next level. They never throw their hands up and say, “Well, that’s good enough. I’m done trying now.”

To jumpstart your own “What’s the next challenge?” mindset, try asking yourself these powerful questions whenever you start to feel complacent at work, or at home:

1. What’s one thing I’d like to do that I’ve never done before?
2. How can I significantly raise the bar on a work project that I’ve committed energy to? How can I push that project to a level of creativity and success I never thought possible?
3. What innovative thinkers and fascinating individuals should I make an effort to connect with? How could these people help me push the envelope in my professional or personal life?
4. What should I be doing in order to strengthen my love with my family and friends? How can I deepen my relationships with my loved ones, and find new meaning in those important relationships?
5. In the key areas that are meaningful to my life—such as health, communication, relationships, finance, career, and world impact—how can I challenge myself to create a more rewarding experience, for myself and those around me?

Today, we live in a world filled with incredible inventions, creative solutions, and wild possibilities—all because people asked themselves the questions listed above. Think of how much less remarkable our world would be if our greatest thinkers had never adopted the mindset of “What’s the next challenge?” Our world today would represent a mere fraction of humanity’s potential.

So it’s time for you to decide: What’s one incredible dream, remarkable goal, huge project, or challenging ambition that you want to start working on, right now? How would overcoming this challenge help you improve—and how would it influence the world to be a better place?

Fight back against complacency and adopt a mindset that pushes you to embrace challenges. Choose one goal that you can start working toward today, something that will take hard work, effort, and creativity—but you know is well worth the challenge. Then watch as your life becomes more meaningful, rewarding, and fulfilled.

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