Here's what I hear from men who've been sitting on the same unfulfilling life for too long:
"Must be nice."
As in: must be nice to travel. Must be nice to do big challenges. Must be nice to have time for adventures. Must be nice to actually enjoy your life.
What they mean is: you got lucky, and I didn't.
I want to respectfully push back on that.
What Designing My Life Has Actually Cost
Let me be honest about the reality behind what looks like luck from the outside.
It's cost me working longer hours than I wanted to. It's put me in debt at moments I didn't enjoy. It's meant choosing discomfort over security, and backing myself when the outcome wasn't guaranteed.
Living in France wasn't handed to me. Running 58 marathons in 58 consecutive days from Alaska to Brisbane didn't fall into my lap. Building a coaching business from scratch, while working as a carpenter and driving Uber, that's not luck. That's a series of deliberate, often uncomfortable choices made by someone who decided that the cost of not trying was higher than the cost of trying and failing.
"Must be nice" is what we say when we've decided the gap between here and there is about luck, not choices. It isn't.
The Research That Should Reframe Everything
Here's the contrarian truth: a great life doesn't require a lucky break, a windfall, or a perfect set of circumstances.
It requires intention, and a plan simple enough that you'll actually follow it.
The evidence for this is striking. Cornell University professor Thomas Gilovich spent over twenty years studying what actually makes people happy. His research found something that should change the way you think about how you spend your time and money: experiences make us happier than possessions, and not by a small margin, but consistently across time, before and after the event, and in how we remember it years later.
The kicker? The happiness we get from anticipating an experience is greater than the happiness we get from anticipating a material purchase. So the benefit of planning an adventure starts the moment you plan it, not when you arrive.
What this means practically is that a great life isn't built by earning more and buying more. It's built by doing more. And doing more doesn't require luck. It requires deciding that you will.
Most Men Overcomplicate This
They picture a great life as something massive: a different career, a different city, a different version of everything. So they do nothing, because the whole transformation feels impossible before it begins.
That's not what I'm talking about.
I'm talking about five experiences per year.
- One new place
- One physical challenge
- One adventure with your mates
- One meaningful experience with your partner
- One thing just for yourself
That's the whole model.
You don't need to overhaul your life to start designing it. You need to get intentional about five moments in the next twelve months.
I call it the Experience Bank, because unlike money, experiences compound. Every one you collect becomes part of who you are. They become stories, confidence, perspective, identity. And unlike possessions, they can never be taken from you or devalued by inflation.
The Objection I Hear Every Time
I know what the sceptic says: "But I've got too many responsibilities."
And I hear that. A mortgage, a family, a demanding job: these are real constraints.
But here's what I know after years of coaching high-performing men: I've never met a man who sat down in November, looked at his calendar, and genuinely could not find space for five meaningful experiences across an entire year. Not one.
What I have met is men who never sat down. Who never looked. Who let the year fill up with obligations and defaults and arrived at December wondering where the time went.
The responsibilities aren't the problem. The absence of intention is.
This is a Calm Mind and Clear Purpose issue as much as anything else. When you know what you're building, when your year has a shape before it begins, decisions become easier. You're not just reacting to what lands in your lap. You're filtering everything through a clear picture of what matters.
What I Know About Doubt
There have been moments in my own journey where I've questioned all of this. Where doubt crept in and asked whether any of it was worth it. Where I wasn't yet the person I needed to be to get the outcomes I wanted.
In those moments, I didn't find a motivational quote. I found the next action. Because I've learned, through running one marathon a day for nearly two months straight, through the hours where everything hurt and nothing was guaranteed, that doubt doesn't disappear before the work. It disappears during it.
A great life doesn't wait for perfect conditions. It gets built in the middle of real ones.
This Year Is Yours to Design
You can design a great life this year. Not someday. This year.
Not by blowing everything up. By being intentional.
Get your body strong. Get your mind calm. Get clear on your purpose. Build a life you're genuinely confident in. And then put five experiences on a calendar that will make this year a chapter worth reading.
If you want to know where to start, take the Own Your Week Scorecard, a free assessment that shows you exactly where you're at across all four pillars of performance. It takes five minutes and tells you more about where your life is leaking than most men discover in years of guesswork.
Your move: What's one thing that would make 2026 unforgettable? Write it down today. Put a date next to it. See what happens.
Cheers
Lachlan Stuart
