One thing you’ll come to find (if you already haven’t already) is that as you age, your circle of friends of friends becomes smaller.

Sometimes, it’s by design and other times it’s just how things turn out. Either way, you’ll find that you simply cannot move with certain individuals after a while and you’ll see that, in some instances, you’re better off alone.

With that being said, greatness cannot be accomplished by one individual effort. Reflect on any success story, and in each of them, you’ll find that there were key people that made the journey possible.

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It can be your mom’s roof or girlfriend’s unwavering faith. It could be a professor who went the extra mile to pull out your potential or a best friend who never let you quit. We’re happier when we’re complimented, and having multiple perspectives gives us a leg up in competition, no matter what field we wish to pursue.

No matter how big or small your core group of friends are, I believe there are three characteristics mandatory to embody if they are to be beneficial to your life.

That’s a friend you can confide in; a friend that you can rely on at all times; and a friend that will push you further than anyone else.

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It’s important to be strategic when plotting about the people we want in our lives. We cannot be friends with just anybody.

Being judgemental is something our parents instilled in us at an early age, as some friends came with an automatic green light while other friends were banned indefinitely, and much is the same as we go throughout life.

When we keep trustworthy friends we’re not afraid of being vulnerable around who bring the best out of us, we give ourselves a better chance at reaching our highest heights.

As universal harmony sounds, the truth is, everyone is not going to get along. Get the right people around you and see how different your life will become.

The Confidant

Not every friend you have is going to be the friend you share your darkest secrets with, or who you cry in front of, but the more people you have in your life you can do this with, the better.

A great trend our society is experiencing is the growing comfortability in discussing mental health.

Within the past year, we’ve witnessed influencers in hip-hop and in professional sports speak on the power in seeking help and handling trauma in a healthy manner. A lot of times it comes down to having someone to talk to, and that can be solved by having more of those types of people in your life.

Hopefully, it’s being reversed, but at a time there seemed to be an emphasis placed on independence and not trusting anyone. “No New Friends” was a popular tune of the time and keeping your lips sealed was praised.

However, vulnerability is amazingly refreshing. Knowing you can be a complete emotional wreck in front of someone and they still see you as they do when you’re winning is an invaluable quality, and it’s one you should demand of your personnel.

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The Trusted

As fundamental as it may sound, when you think of the number of people you can blindly trust, it usually comes out to a figure that’s a lot lower than you’d think.

Everyone has an agenda, and, whether if you originally shared a vision with someone or not, if there’s a change in heart and in result a conflict of interest or no common interest, you may find someone you at one point trusted doing what’s in their best interest, despite if it’s detrimental to yours. That’s life.

That is why friends who will be in your corner and never do anything to compromise what you have going for yourself are necessary.

I’m not saying everyone close to you must share your vision, but they also must be someone who will invest and encourage, not promote doubt.

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The Motivator

Along with people you can be yourself around and people you can trust, you need people in your life who will demand your best at all times.

We need people in our lives who can check us. You never want to get to a point in your life where no one can tell you anything. You want to always have someone around you that can penetrate your ego, or else you’ll be susceptible to your own bias.

Imagine the ambition you naturally have fueled by that of a close friend — that’s how you level up. Just like a parent concerned with who their child hangs out with, we should vet who we let close to us.

When we’re intentional about who we expose ourselves to, we can control how we’re influenced.

Life has a tendency of slipping by, doesn’t it?

We’ve all experienced it to some extent either by making comment on how fast the year has gone or reflecting on how long it’s been since talking to an old friend. But have you ever wondered how that happens?

If we’re going through life and the things we want, places we want to go, and relationships we want to enrich are out of reach, what are we doing?

We have one life to live, why can’t we live it capturing the moments that mean the most to us? There has to be a way to slow it all down, to somehow be present in the areas that are most important to us, right?

Our non-negotiable responsibilities, time restrictions, lack of resources or whatever it may be that we feel is getting in the way of us and the things we’ve always wanted to do, are actually more controllable than we realize.

With intent, a little planning, and discipline, we can grab ahold of our life and lead it, instead of watching it pass us by. Life is too short for us to react and reflect on it. Don’t just dwell. Live, and take the reigns and determine how your life plays out.

Live decisively

A lot of times we’re reactionary to life because we don’t make a decision on what we actually want. We may have a desire or thought to follow through but we never concretely determine what we want for ourselves until after the moment has passed us by.

Write down what you want for yourself and live decisively. If you want a stronger relationship with a family member, make it an objective to strengthen that relationship and give yourself a quota of outgoing calls to make a week. If you want to be closer to your friends from college, set up a group chat, set up chill dates, and try not to flake.

The time we spend won’t be as elusive if we track it. Take control of your life by taking time to stop and plot out the life you want, then follow through.

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Schedule everything

I remember being given a planner at the beginning of each term in high school and feeling like was nothing more than a waste of trees.

Now that I’m adult with more moving pieces than ever, a planner is literally the only thing that helps me stay on top of what I want and need to accomplish.

There’s something about having everything out in front of you that makes execution a lot easier. Proper preparation prevents poor performance, so when we pencil down our thoughts, desires and loose streams of consciousness, we’re breaking down big-picture ambitions down to daily, digestible task.

Maybe the reason you’ve never vacationed in the countryside of Spain is that you never started to plan it. Maybe the reason you never got that body you’ve wanted is because you never set a game plan.

When we decide we want to get something done, and we make a plan on how to get it done, the chances of us accomplishing it heightens exponentially.

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Sacrifice

To receive, we must give. It’s a rudimentary and universal concept to living that’s long been proven, yet it’s something we fail to acknowledge whenever we feel defeated about what we fail to achieve.

Along with living decisively and planning, if we want life to slow down and if we want to do what we’ve always wanted, we must learn to give something up; to sacrifice. It can be junk food, a life of partying or maybe a relationship. If we want life to fall into place the way we’d like, it may take us giving something up.

Life zooms past us when we’re unprepared, but it also flies by when we have too much luggage. Living the life we’ve always dreamt of calls for us to periodically take a step back in order to evaluate what we don’t need, then making the necessary adjustments to get there.

LeBron didn’t have everything fall into his lap without sacrifice. Neither does anyone you see who lives the life they want, it all comes with a price. The point is that it’s in our control; it’s just a matter of figuring out what you need to drop completely.

We don’t have to react to life. We don’t have to live a life of what-if’s and always be in wonderment of how fast time flies. We can slow life down and live it in the way we desire.

It’s just up to us to do so.

Let social media tell it: you’re the most broke, least accomplished and least traveled of all your friends. Just turn on your phone and without fail, there will be someone who’s doing what they love and living their best life at a level you can only dream of.

I’m talking trips out the country, perfect GPAs, dream job — the whole gamut. Even on a more fundamental level, if you look too much into it, it will feel as if everyone has a grasp on life that you just can’t get ahold of.

For example, the other day I saw someone broadcast how they paid off their student loans in full, and not too long after I saw this couple, who couldn’t be any older than 25, boast about putting a down payment on a home. Both feats that made me question my entire existence.

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In the spirit of showing our best selves, social media has made all of us appear a lot better than we actually are. In result, it feels like others have got their shit together far more than us, regardless of how true that actually may be.

Because we’re habitual consumers of this hyperbole, these projections, to some degree, make us insecure. We find ourselves wondering what they’re doing right and what we’re doing wrong; why they’re succeeding and why you’re not.

Fact is, we all want to do well in life. Despite how much we procrastinate, and how reckless we behave at times, we want to live abundantly, prolifically and efficiently — not just scraping by.

Since getting bitten by that independence bug in high school it’s been a nonstop journey of proving we’re responsible enough and that we’re good stewards of our lives. So when we see others who have it together, quite naturally, it causes us to question ourselves.

This is why we get down on ourselves when it looks like everyone else gets it: because we want to master this adulting thing, too.

Well, I’m here to tell you that what you see is rarely the case. No one person has it all together, nor is one person on top of everything. Even if someone has accomplished something you’re working towards, there are areas in their life that they wish to improve that, in their minds, is just in as much disarray as you believe yourself to be in.

Having your “shit together” is relative. It’s relative to who you are, where you’re going, and where you’re from. We all have a different set of responsibilities that are unique to our specific lives, so making these responsibilities equivalent across the board is an inaccurate assessment.

J.Cole’s track off of 2014 Forest Hill’s Drive, “Love Yourz”, is the perfect remedy for this phenomenon. In the chorus, he sings, “there’s no such thing as a life that’s better than yours,” and it’s true.

What you go through and the tasks that lie ahead of your life will just take different form through another’s lens. The angst we feel from what we’ve yet accomplished is the same angst Bill Gates, that 4.0 student or whoever else’s life looks appealing faces. It just looks different.

You’re always going to want more for yourself. Instead of looking at the next person and envying what they’ve accomplished and how they’re living, what we should do is focus on whats in front of us and improving upon it little by little.

You have your shit together far more than you think you do.

Even having the present mindstate to acknowledge your desire for better is lightyears ahead of most. It’s only when we’re engaged in what we don’t have and what we haven’t accomplished that this depressive outlook becomes overbearing.

No matter what level you reach, you’re always going to see that there’s a high level ahead. Our job is to conquer where we are, not where we want to go; only then will we see that our shit has been together all along.

What do you do when it feels like you’re out of options? How do you handle not having a handle? What happens to you when frustration sets in?

While it’s our responsibility to lead a life of intention — a life where we’re proactive, not reactive — there will most certainly be aspects of life that are absolutely out of our control.

A family member passing, resources dwindling, receiving multiple “no’s”, you name it — life goes left all the time. And while we’re allowed to process the emotions that come as a result, how we handle ourselves during these times will often make or break us.

The answer isn’t cursing out your manager and walking out of your dead-end job. Neither is it abusing substances nor even allowing yourself to fall into depression. Frustration is not a precursor to defeat; if anything, it’s a test of fortitude and a sign that you may have to do something different.

It’s important we recognize, identify, and handle frustration when it arises. We should not run, mask, or destructively channel it. Frustration is enraging — but somehow energizing. We win when we use this energy to our advantage.

Switch it up

If you don’t like where you’re going, you should probably change what you’re doing. It’s as simple as that. You’d be surprised at how refreshing and how much of a reset a switch up could be. It can be a detox.

Picking up a new hobby, going dark on social media, or even ridding toxic people from your life are all things that can help you get out of a funk. Switching up your routine instantly changes the direction of your life, which can alleviate the frustrations you’re facing.

Sometimes we think it takes something drastic and life-altering, but really solving the feeling of being stuck is in the little details. Breaking down our lives to rebuild it in a refreshing way opens new realities and allows us to assess where we are through a different lens.

When you’re frustrated, don’t get down or beat yourself up. Try and shake your life up.

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Draw out a real plan

One of the easiest and fastest ways to dissipate feelings of frustration is to etch out a gameplan. Sometimes direction is all we need for reassurance.

There’s peace in knowing that although you may not be doing what you want, you’re doing something in the meanwhile to change that.

Making a plan allows you to sit down and look at your life as a whole, which when we’re in the midst of living, is hard to do. We hardly ever slow down to take a step back, and that is why we often feel overwhelmed.

Assess where you are, have an idea of where you want to go, then find comfort in knowing that you’re working towards that. Successful people get frustrated, then get better, and never allow it to limit them.

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Pace yourself

A lot of times the frustrations we face in life are a result of impatience. We hate where we are, so we want a quick fix. We find a solution in a gameplan and we expect it to work immediately, but life doesn’t work that way.

We must pace ourselves in everything we do.

Much like our dreams and aspirations, our gameplan to combat frustration is a process. We only stress ourselves more when we rush to get better. This is why it’s imperative the thought of pacing ourselves is at the forefront of our minds when frustration strikes.

We must keep in mind that these emotions won’t necessarily fade overnight and we must build the mental toughness to understand that. At times, it is a high climb to get out of a rut.

Your situation is not going to change overnight and wanting it to won’t help. When we breathe, trust in the plan we’ve laid forth, and take it a day at a time, we’ll find that we’ll be a lot less overwhelmed.

Frustrating times have no time limit. They can be as quick as a term in college to as long as the big break of an aspiring artist. Pacing ourselves and trusting that we’re doing what we can with what we have limits how frustrating it can actually be.

Frustration does not have to be crippling. It can be motivating and inspiring — it’s all about how we use it.

You don’t need a degree in the study of human behavior to see that there are two types of people in the world: the motivated and the unmotivated.

They’re pretty easy to point out, too. The motivated live with a purpose while the unmotivated go through life as if they have nothing to lose.

Now, if you’re of the former, you know the hustle for greatness can be taxing.

Owning the responsibility of achieving more organically gives life a heavier load. Unlike the latter, the life you want is continually at odds with the life you have and the struggle to make those worlds one weeds out weak.

It really doesn’t matter what you do, either. It can be a career in the medical field, entrepreneurial aspirations, or dreams of becoming the next music icon. If you want to be at the top, difficulties will always arise. They take the form of bills, family, illness, fatigue, and a host of other unforeseeable uncertainties.

The kicker is: life doesn’t stop because of them.

What separates the people that want it and the people that don’t, and the people who go places in life and the people who remain stuck, are the adopted techniques to navigate life’s curve balls.

Eliminating excuses of nepotism, handouts, and simply getting done what needs to get done are what all successful people have accomplished. They do whatever it takes to cultivate every ounce of their talent, no matter the circumstance, and it’s because of this fortitude that they are able to win. Luckily, you can too.

In some shape or fashion, the three components of time management, self-discipline and focus have been used by any and everyone who’s achieved greatness. If mastered, these three attributes can take you from wherever you are to where you want to be.

There may be a million and one things you can point out that the next guy has more than you but you still have the same 24 hours.  The only gatekeeper to your next level is you, and it’s through mastering these three traits, you can unlock it.

Time management

The most common excuse to not getting something done is the lack of time to do it. What people don’t understand about this excuse, however, is that it automatically exposes them as terrible keepers of time in the first place.

We’re all allotted the same number of minutes every week. If someone is able to accomplish multiple feats, why can’t you? It’s all a matter of management.

The easiest way to get ahead of the competition is to put in more time than them. You can look at any billionaire businessman or read about the regimen of Gucci Mane and you’ll find that the common thread is the time they’ve put in. It comes down to how bad you want it and what you’re willing to sacrifice — and sleep has to be on that list.

You’ll be amazed what you can accomplish when you give yourself a schedule, prioritize your hours, then actually stick to it. With intention and a plan, you can fit in whatever it is you want to accomplish.

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Self-discipline

“Master the body and the mind will follow,” is the motto behind NBA Champion and league MVP Stephen Curry’s new campaign with Kaiser Permanente which tackles mental health issues.

The spot broke April 8th during the Golden State Warriors’ game against the New Orleans Pelicans and shows how Curry drowns out all the criticism thrown his way.

The premise of the ad is that when you master your mind — which, in Curry’s case is the outside noise — you can perform at a much higher level. Much is the same with us in our perspective endeavors.

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With Curry, it’s controlling how outside options affect him; for you, it might be controlling what your diet; and for the next person, it may be controlling their sleeping schedule. Either way, there are things we can do every day to enhance our performance that is completely in our control. It just takes a mastery of self.

We have to lead with our minds, not our bodies. Our bodies will tell us we’re tired, not to go the extra mile, to do what’s easy.  But “easy” never got anyone anywhere far. Easy is what the mediocre do. Easy is for the unmotivated.

When you make your mind up to do what you don’t feel like doing and when you discipline your flesh to do what your thoughts want, you’ll find yourself making ground that you’ve never made before.

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Focus

Two years ago, Drake hopped on Fetty Wap’s “My Way” and famously opened up his verse by singing: “All I got to do is put my mind to this shit,” and honestly, that resonated with me forever.

While the song is jovial, the concept couldn’t have rung truer: focus is the most fundamental component of success. A lot of us just aren’t putting out minds to… well, anything.

High school taught us to scrape by and college didn’t help much breaking those habits. When you think about it, not trying is an encouraged lifestyle. It’s almost as if we’ve been conditioned to see how we can get the most done with the least amount of effort.

This is a habit that must be broken. Going far in life takes going all in; complete focus; tunnel vision.

LeBron famously goes dark doing playoff time, peeling himself off all social media platforms to zero in on the prize (he’s gone to seven straight NBA finals).

And Kobe has branded #MambaMentality: a mindset of hellbent determination and will; something that’s earned him five rings as well as the reputation as one of the most mentally tough NBA players of all-time. Trust me, it works.

Most of the time people are afraid to try because they are afraid to fail.

They don’t want to feel the disappointment of not achieving at something they’ve put their all in to, and in result, end up never trying hard at anything at all. The secret is, the harder you try, the better you become. Once you find out that you can master one thing, then you’ll have the confidence to master multiple things.

The moment you begin investing time in what matters, weaning yourself off the unnecessary, and zeroing in focus, is the moment everything will begin happening.

If you want the unordinary, then you must live like it. The majority of people don’t commit to these traits, which is why the majority isn’t great.

Get these traits under your belt and you’ll go as far as you see yourself going.

Intention. This might be one of, if not, the most impactful habits that we can cultivate.

It really doesn’t matter who you are or what you do — focused and deliberate actions can alter the course of your life, yet “intention” is an attribute I rarely see advocated or taught.

Life is a beautiful mess…

There will be times where you’ll get to see the gorgeous sun and other times, in your life, where you have to endure days of torrential downpour. At one moment you can be basking in the news of a blessing and in the next shocked by tragedy — there is no true way to prevent the uncertainties of life.

It is for this reason why every day we should try and get ahead of the what we can, and to do that, takes intention. Without intention, your life can become reactionary. A reactionary life will make you feel as if you’re not in the driver’s seat. You don’t want life to pass you by with your dreams and aspirations in the rearview mirror.

With intention, life tends to slow down. You’re not doing things last minute and you’re not caught off guard as often. Applying intention to your life can make you feel as if you have some control over an existence wherein many things aren’t.

Whether it’s a relationship you wish to cultivate, a dream you’re pursuing or even your physical appearance, we have more power than we think.

When we’re intentional we’re proactive, and it’s with proactivity that we can ensure that we’re on track to properly conquer exactly what we want out of life.

#1: Know where you want to go

A reason it feels like life is hurdling at full force towards us instead of an experiential timeline is that a lot of us are floating without direction.

It’s easy to be blindsided when we don’t know what kind of rooms we’re entering. The first rule of intention and taking control of your life is knowing where you’re going — to have a destination in mind. That way we can formulate the best way to get there.

Without a location in mind or a goal to strive for, its hard to be intentional about anything. With purpose, there’s something to work towards, progress to track, and benchmarks to measure.

If you don’t have an idea of where you’re going then can you complain about situations never going your way? You can’t really be mad about things that slip away from you if you’ve never made a serious claim on them in the first place. That’s all intention is -making a claim on what you want in life

You should have some control over your life and at least some say in how it pans out. With that said, make sure you know what lifepath it is that you need to take.

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#2: Intentionally schedule

An easy way to be intentional is to pick up the habit of scheduling. Write everything down, buy a planner, make posters, set dates, etc.

It’s impossible to keep track of everything that crosses our mind and it’s even harder to fit in everything we want to accomplish, but when we make deliberate steps — like writing things down —  there’s a bigger chance of them happening.

Everyday wrinkles in life like getting in shape or wanting a stronger relationship with a family member are examples of what we have control over, regardless of circumstance.

It may sound silly, but giving yourself a quota for how many times to call your folks a week is a brilliant way of being intentional about your relationship with your family.

Similarly, meal prepping is universally accepted practice in the fitness world as a way to stay on top of your diet. This is what being intentional looks like.

We can’t always blame life and it’s unpredictability for our shortcomings. All it takes is a little planning ahead, and there’s only so much we can control.

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#3: Constantly evaluate yourself and keep pushing forward

It’s up to us to take control of our lives. We can’t wait around for another individual to make it happen for us or for them to magically fall in place.

In fact, the people who wait are the main ones who feel like nothing is happening to them or that their life is out of their control.

When you’re intentional, everything that needs to be done is always at the forefront of your consciousness.

You know what you’ve done, you know what you haven’t, and you know what needs to change. It takes a regular revisitation of what we want for ourselves and the mind-frame to correct it, frequently!

It may take more concentration, headspace and foresight, but living with intention is liberating.

When we do our due diligence in making our behaviors intentional, we put ourselves in the position to be our best selves and to take control of our lives.