Caged, Comfortable, or Charged – Which Life Are You Living?

I recently began reading the book The Charge by Brendon Burchard. In this book he talks about how people, although they have everything they “need” to be happy, they don’t feel the levels of engagement, excitement, or satisfaction they deserve.

Brendon discusses that the only way to measurably improve the quality of your life is to learn how to activate the 10 drives that make you most human. I will be sharing with you these 10 drives in another post.

In this blog post I want to share with you, according to Brendon’s 15 years of studying the human condition, the three types of lives that people tend to live. You are living one of these lives today and you can choose to keep it, amplify it, or change it altogether.

The types of lives that I am referring to above are The Caged Life, The Comfortable Life, and the Charged Life.

The Three Types of Lives – Which One Are You Living Right Now?

The Caged Life

Many people live their lives stuck in the past, or they live their lives based on how others tell them how they should live. The issue with this is that these people never dare to venture outside of their “comfort zone” or the world they know. Another thing is that if they’ve lived their lives according to the opinions of others, they are afraid to break out of those molds for fear of rejection.

These people generally feel tied to where they are, trapped by past experiences they never got over, ruled by the results of yesterday, scared to disappoint those who have told him how to live. They often feel that this is the life that has been set up for them and that there is no escape from it. This creates false expectations and assumptions in their lives.

There are two ways out of this cage. The first is when life puts it upside down, by chance or fate, and smashes our reality and opens the cage for good. The second way out, is by pure willpower, that takes massive personal effort. This happens when we choose to look beyond our past experiences and the opinions of others and see that there is more to life than what we have believed or been told how it should be. It happens when we consciously choose to create a new self-image in life and fight to shape it into existence by aligning her thoughts and behaviors to make it so.

The Comfortable Life

For many of us, life is not as restricted or boxed in as the cage life. Through dedication, hard work, and fortunate circumstances, many of us live what could be considered a comfortable life. We live what most consider to be a successful life, we have houses, spouses, kids, and cars. We feel thankful and engaged for our lives. We made some trade-offs here and there – a couple more hours at the office here and there instead of vacation or family time. But we know what we were getting into. We felt comfortable and satisfied.

But then one day someone asked you “How is life going?”, and you’re surprised to hear yourself say something along the lines of “oh, life is good… I can’t complain…” This creates a bit of discomfort and you, because your mind begins to wonder Is this really what I wanted? Is this it? Who’s life am I living? Am I capable of more?

When you start thinking this way, your brain starts making you feel guilty by telling you: You should be more grateful, You don’t know how good you got it, You should be satisfied with what you have.

And even though you are not in a cage, you’re more or less in a rut, you begin to feel trapped. You wonder, How did I end up here? What happened to my ambition, excitement, and drive?

While the caged self sees the world as scary, the comfortable one sees it as stale. However, there is one similarity between both of them, they both desire more color, variety, creativity, freedom, and connection. They both desire the Charged Life!

The Charged Life

The person living the Charged Life wonders, Am I living an inspired life and inspiring others? Am I living my truth and actualizing my potential? The charged feels joy and purpose in new and challenging activities, and finds life to be magical and meaningful instead of mysterious. The charged self sees the world filled with exciting and unlimited possibilities for growth and progress.

Those of us who live charged lives don’t feel disengaged or restless because of life. We are creating our own world and our own definitions of what it means to live and move forward. We are fully experiencing and living our lives the way we want to, not chasing someone else’s life.

When we live the charged life, we’re not worried about the waves we make, we focus on doing what is right and meaningful. If hurt feelings or controversy occur along the way, we meet them with care and full presence but continue to march forward.

It seems, at first glance, that those living the Charged Life have overcome all obstacles and are living a charmed life. But that’s not really it. It’s that those with high charge levels enjoy the journey no matter what the obstacles are that present themselves. Unlike the caged or comfortable, they don’t ask life or reality to satiate them or make them safe. Instead, they look forward to the change and growth.

The Charged Life seems like a star to the caged or the comfortable, it seems to fly above the fray, fueled by an entirely different energy and bound for an entirely different destination. Yet those who live the charged life are quite grounded, and they will tell you that they were once themselves caged or comfortable, or even both.

When we find the charged life, it feels unlike everything we have ever experienced. It has an energy of enthusiasm that seems to endure no matter the circumstances or challenges that may come.

Common Attributes of Chargers

“When you discover yourself living a Charged Life, you notice an even, confident, buoyant, and sustained energy about yourself” ~Brendon Burchard

Here are the seven common attributes of Chargers as described by Brendon:

1. Chargers are open and observant in the moment.
2. Chargers are future oriented.
3. Chargers are challenge seekers.
4. Chargers are deeply interested in, and authentically connect with, others.
5. Chargers are self-reliant.
6. Chargers are creatively driven.
7. Chargers are meaning makers.

To read more about these attributes, how to live a charged life, and to get a copy of this book you can Click Here Now

Perhaps, as you’ve read this post, you’ve realized that there is more to your life than what you thought. That there is a desire in you to accomplish more, to get out and explore and achieve more than you have so far.

This doesn’t mean that you have wasted your life, it just means that you have not lived your life to its fullest. If you’re feeling guilty about this, don’t! All you have to do is choose to change this and enjoy your life a bit more.

Now go out there and start creating Your Charged Life!

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To Your Continued Success!

Christian Rivera