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The Charge

By Brendon Burchard

The Charge (2012) explains how to activate the human drives that lead to happiness. These blinks clearly lay out what you need to do to feel confident, grounded, energized and prepared for any challenge, providing helpful tips on how to do it.

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What’s in it for me? Live a charged life by activating the ten human drives!

Do you ever feel as though your life is living you? You wake up, and you have no say in what your day will look like – it’s already all mapped out. You just eat, work, eat, work, eat, sleep, repeat. And on the weekend, you’re too burned out to do much more than watch TV and catch up on sleep.

Well, it’s time for a drastic change. Even if you’re relatively content with your life, and only occasionally wonder what it would have been like to pursue your dreams full-throttle, it’s time for a new outlook.

Instead of feeling like you live in a cage that’s merely comfortable, start living a charged life – the only lifestyle that will bring you lasting happiness and long-term fulfillment.

Luckily, it’s by no means impossible to get there. All you have to do is activate the ten human drives, which is exactly what these blinks will teach you how to do.

In these blinks, you’ll also find out

the difference between a goal and a challenge;

how creative you are; and

how to be who you think you are.

There are three types of life you can lead: caged, comfortable or charged.

What constitutes a fulfilled life in your eyes? Is it working a well-paying job, owning a house with a white picket fence and taking the kids to the beach on Sundays? Well, that’s what society would typically have you believe – that happiness is the sum of a materialistic equation. But society’s math is faulty.

Indeed, living a life prescribed by others is like living in a cage. And the bars of the cage are erected early on.

When we’re young, our caregivers reward the development of certain attributes, such as self-discipline and ambitiousness, by accepting us and giving us affection. In adulthood, we continue to seek those same rewards by following similar rules. We do what others expect us to do, and work the kind of job that would make our parents proud.

We may be unhappy. We may feel limited and unfulfilled. But we still won’t break out of the cage, because we fear losing what we’ve worked so hard to gain: acceptance.

Now, some of us don’t feel utterly caged. We’re comfortable, living what society calls the “good life”: a nice house, a nice spouse and a nice paycheck at the end of each nice month.

We’re thankful for all this, but, deep down, questions nag: Is this really what I want? Am I missing out on something better?

Like our caged comrades, we long for self-realization. But instead of pursuing it, we count our blessings and convince ourselves that we’re content.

Then there are those who live the charged life. Let’s simply call them chargers.

They feel unhindered by others’ expectations, and they’re unconcerned about the so-called “good life.” Their world overflows with possibility, and they follow their own path through it, pursuing their own happiness.

If you’ve been living the comfortable or the caged life, it’s time to learn how to be a charger.

“Chargers are optimistic about the future, and that optimism works like a magnet, drawing that desired future to them.”

Take control of your approach to life and work.

Regardless of whether your life is caged, comfortable or charged, one thing is certain: you’re seeking happiness. And it’s a simple fact that people living charged lives are happier.

That’s because they’ve activated the ten human drives.

Human drives aren’t essential to survival, and you can experience temporary happiness without them, but they’re something we all desire – and activating them is the only way to live a truly charged life and achieve sustainable happiness.

The first five drives are called baseline drives, and they underpin feelings of inner wellness, such as self-confidence and a sense of belonging. These drives are control, competence, congruence, caring and connection.

Let’s start at the beginning, with control.

Most events in life are simply beyond your control. You can’t control the flow of traffic or what strangers will say to you or how hard the rain will fall. However, you can control how you react to these things, and this can make a huge difference.

If you live a caged life and something displeasing befalls you, you’ll probably interpret that event as further proof of your own limitations. If you live a charged life, however, you’ll regard all negative events as nothing more than information, not something that can ruin your day or dash your self-confidence.

The author’s father exemplifies control perfectly. When diagnosed with leukemia, he maintained his positive attitude. He won over the hospital staff with his friendliness and his jokes, and he frequently told his family how proud of them he was. He stayed in control and didn’t let cancer ruin the last weeks of his life.

Once you’ve gained personal control, you can begin establishing professional control at work. It starts with ownership – the sense that you own certain projects, and that your contribution is palpable and appreciated.

Ownership can turn a job that you dread into the job of your dreams.

Unfortunately, most companies don’t encourage ownership. They depend on big teams, and the tiny contributions of individual team members tend to go unappreciated.

If you don’t currently feel responsible for a project at work, and there’s no project you could join, consider spearheading one yourself. You’ll be happier for it.

Competence is scarce these days, so you should work on yours.

Did you ever have a teacher who seemed capable of explaining anything? What about a coworker who could deal with any work-related problem? Such people are as inspirational as they are rare, and that’s because they embody the second baseline drive: competence.

Competence is a threefold ability. It means you can understand, perform and, eventually, master whatever you decide to undertake. If you know that you can do these three things, even the most daunting of challenges will no longer seem insurmountable.

Unfortunately, the modern workplace tends to put a damper on competence. In general, employees are encouraged to multitask rather than master particular skills, which essentially short-circuits the confidence-competence-loop. If you never feel competent, you’ll never feel confident, and if you never feel confident, you’ll never engage in projects that might lead to a feeling of competence.

But moments will always arise when competence is required, and if you lack the competence to face those moments, you’ll begin to feel insecure. This, in turn, may lead to self-doubt, anxiety and disappointments.

So you’ve got to reactivate the confidence-competence-loop by setting yourself challenges.

There are three criteria for the challenges you set: they should be real (that is, difficult to accomplish), time-bound and observable.

So a basketball player might try to increase the average number of baskets he sinks by five (real) in the fourth quarter (time-bound) and have his coach watch him do it (observable).

Overcoming these challenges will build your competence, which will boost your confidence, which will make you eager to tackle the next challenge. The loop will be back in action.

You can start with a 60-day speed-learning challenge. Take two months to learn a new skill, like how to play your favorite song on the guitar, or how to operate a complicated tool at work. This will kickstart the loop for you.

Attain positive congruence between your self-image and your actions by setting standards for yourself.

You get home after work, eat dinner with your partner, get in bed and, when you’re about to turn off the light, your partner says, “You didn’t even remember.” It’s your anniversary, and you’ve forgotten again. Or you’re explaining to your crying son that you’ll take him to the zoo next week, because – oops – you scheduled an after-work meeting and totally forgot about your family outing.

If you’re striving to be a better partner or a better parent, you’ll need to activate the third baseline drive, congruence, which is what brings your actions in line with your self-image and the person you’re aspiring to be.

There are three levels of congruence. Between the way you act and the way you see yourself, there can either be positive congruence, negative congruence or no congruence whatsoever.

If there’s no congruence, then your actions don’t reflect your self-image. Deep down, you believe you could be a better person, and you’re constantly disappointing yourself with your actions.

If there’s negative congruence, then you have a low opinion of yourself, and you act accordingly.

For instance, if you don’t think you’re capable of, say, learning Swedish, then you’ll never even attempt to learn it, which will only bear out the dim view you have of your abilities. There’s congruence between self-image and your lack of actions, but you remain dissatisfied because you never actually pursue your dreams.

If there’s positive congruence, however, then you know both who you are and who you want to be – and you align your actions with this knowledge. You’re comfortable with the choices you make, and you feel deeply content and at peace.

So how do you achieve positive congruence? Well, you’ve got to set standards for yourself and truly stick to them. This might sound hard; however, if your personal standards are both realistic and free of external influence, then you’ll find it easy to commit to them because they come from you and you alone.

Listen to your inner voice, and write six words on a piece of paper: three about who you want to be and three about how you want to treat others. Keep this note in your purse or pin it beside your desk – anywhere that you’ll see it often so that it’ll stay on top of your mind.

Stick to your standards, and you’ll begin to feel more content in all situations.

Care for yourself and be receptive to the care others give you.

We all long to feel accepted, and we all crave attention and affection. And the only way to have these needs met is to receive the care of another person.

Care is the fourth baseline drive, and it functions as both an emotional compass and anchor, guiding how we act around others as well as connecting us to them.

But before we can truly start giving care to others, let alone receiving it from them, we must learn how to care for ourselves, and the first step on the road to self-care is listening to your emotions.

Turning a deaf ear to your feelings can upend your life in surprising ways. For instance, the author once coached a former football star who was having trouble managing the car dealership he owned. Throughout his life, the athlete had experienced letdown after emotional letdown, so he tended to keep people at arm’s length. But his customers found this off-putting, and car sales suffered.

So the author encouraged him to start listening to his emotions by taking a moment, three times per day, to check in with his feelings. This not only helped him reestablish emotional equilibrium; it also gave business a boost.

Naturally, your bodily health is just as important as your emotional health. So be sure that you get seven hours of sleep per night, that you exercise three days per week and that vegetables make up one-third of your daily food intake. Caring for your body won’t only improve your overall health; it’ll sharpen your mind and boost your sense of well-being too.

Now that you’ve established good self-care habits, it’s time to embrace the care of others.

If you tend to hold people at a distance, then this may be frightening. But remember – the risk of getting hurt is an inextricable part of gaining the care of others, and it’s certainly a risk worth taking.

One way to start opening up to others is to write down some of your life challenges, be they emotional, professional or financial. Then, share this list with people in your life. Explain what your goals are, and listen to the advice these people have to offer. This will instantly create a caring dynamic.

Forge deep connections with others.

Humans are social animals. We need people with whom we can share our thoughts and feelings, from our sadness about a recent fight with our parents to our excitement about an upcoming first date. But we can’t confide our innermost feelings to just anyone; it has to be someone to whom we feel deeply connected.

If you want to activate the fifth baseline drive and forge connections, then you need to be crystal clear about what you expect a relationship to look like.

In your opinion, what exactly is a close relationship? Come up with clear definitions for all your relationships – from your friends and coworkers to your parents and your partner.

Then, share each definition with the relevant person or people, and request that they share their expectations too.

For instance, the author once asked his mom what she expects from a deep mother-son connection. She requested that he call her every Sunday, to say hello and express his love – and this ritual, which he’s been doing for the last 15 years, has brought him much closer to his mother.

Good relationships are predicated on good people, so in order to forge those deep connections, you’ve got to find the right folks. While you can’t choose your family, you can certainly pick your pals. But before you start searching for a new bestie, you should categorize your current friends.

Make a list of all the friends you’ve had. Mention the reason for the friendship and what made each friendship good. Now put each friend into one of three categories: old friends, the ones who no longer play an active role in your life; maintenance friends, the ones you only enjoy seeing occasionally; and growth friends, the ones who make you feel great, make you laugh and always have your back.

You should see your growth friends at least once a month, and you should try to find about ten of them; they’re the ones who’ll bring your life happiness and charge.