The 4 Personal Quests

Welcome, Adventurer to the first episode of Becoming The Hero. I’m Justin Lewis and I’ll be your DM for today. You might think DM means dungeon master as in from Dungeons and Dragons. While I am an excellent Dungeon Master, that’s not what DM stands for on this show.

No, here DM means development master. I’ll explain more about that later.

If you’re listening to the show for the first time Becoming The Hero is The Personal Development podcast for nerds who see amazing heroes in their books, comics, games, or movies and desperately want to be like their heroes. This is the show to help you become like them. Do you know that feeling you feel when seeing a cool scene in a movie? I want you to have that feeling about yourself. It’s going to take some mental shifts and also some work, but I truly believe that everyone can have lives they feel you can write a book or make a movie about.

So let’s get into it.

You’re probably thinking that now we need to talk about “setting goals” and being “SMART” about it. You’re right…. And you’re wrong.

You don’t need goals. You’ve likely been setting goals your entire life. You’ve probably hit some and missed some.

You need something more.

You need a personal quest.

Cast your mind. Think about Tolkein’s Lord of The Rings, or Lucas’ Star Wars, or Rowling’s Harry Potter (and yes I know the faux pas I committed in having you compare Tolkein and J.K. Rowling, but just go with it for now). The hero in each of those stories doesn’t set goals. Instead, they set out to accomplish something.

Frodo set out first to take the ring to Gandalf at the Prancing Pony and then to Rivendel and then to Mordor.

Luke set out to get off of Tatooine and then to help Princess Leia and then finally to become a Jedi like his father before him.

Harry set out to become a wizard, and then pass his years in school and then fight He Who Must Not Be Named over and over and over again.

I’m not saying that writing down goals isn’t worth your time. You’re going to be doing a lot of writing because you won’t remember everything you think of.

Instead, I’m saying you need to add a little more adventure into your life. Add more excitement and let that help fuel you onto the greatness you so truly desire.

“Oh Great and Wise DM Justin, what kinds of personal quests are there?”

Well, I’ll tell you incredibly handsome and humble inner voice.

In my estimation, there are exactly 4 types of personal quests. Everything else is just specifics.

You can set out to acquire resources.

You can set out to build relationships.

You can set out to develop skills.

And you can set out to further a cause.

If you think of another category, please email me as I’d love to be illuminated.

But seriously, all your personal quests fall into these categories.

“Can I choose all of these quests?”

Of course, you can inner voice, however, I don’t know that I’d recommend it. You see, by choosing the quest, you also indicate exactly what VICTORY looks like. Accomplishing the quest happens in part because of the specificity.

Do you want an example of unspecificity? Think about the movie Forrest Gump.

Forrest is an amazing individual, but at a certain point, he loses all specificity in his life. He decides all he wants to do is run, so he does. He doesn’t have any aim or goal, he just wants to run. That works for him because that’s what he wants. He runs and runs and finally at one point, he decides he doesn’t want to run anymore. His quest was to run. It wasn’t to run any distance or reach any...