# Ideal end state

By [Brandon Donnelly](https://paragraph.com/@brandondonnelly), 2024-01-15

business, defining-success, ideal-end-state, kevin-dahlstrom, life-goals, life-lessons, personal

---

A friend of mine sent me [this X post today](https://x.com/Camp4/status/1721908863124025492?s=20).

It covers two important life questions: (1) How do you define success? (2) Are your actions aligned with that definition? And included in the post is the author's "ideal end state", which is a list that includes things like "control 80% of my schedule", "be top 0.1% fit for my age group", and "thriving marriage with regular 1-on-1 time."

Some of his list has checkmarks, and some of it -- things like "small, beautifully designed home with an epic view" -- is still a work in progress.

After I got the message, I immediately responded with: "This is great. I'm going to do this for myself." I then sent it to my family.

Now, in some ways, I'm already doing this. I like lists and I have a lot of them. Some of them are "disciplines" that tell me to do things like write every day (that's what this blog is), lift weights, and [continuously practice my French](https://brandondonnelly.com/2023/09/22/learning-french-again/). And some of them deal with aspirational goals like, build a [creative retreat in the mountains](https://pmhpc.com/) because you love snowboarding.

But I think there's a lot of room for me to be even more intentional, and aspirational, about what success means to me. And so that's what I plan to do. Maybe some of you will want to do the same after reading this post.

---

*Originally published on [Brandon Donnelly](https://paragraph.com/@brandondonnelly/ideal-end-state)*