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Identifying the 5 Most Important Areas of Life | 5 Targets
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About 5 years ago, I created this thing called The Amos Project. It was, essentially, The Rugged Face before The Rugged Face existed. Part of my mission behind the Amos Project was to see men be different by embracing adventure more in their daily lives. I had created the 5 most important areas of life that I called The Five Targets. I had considered other names, but ultimately, these were the 5 things that we needed to aim for in our pursuit of a meaningful life filled with adventure.
Faith, Family, Finances, Fitness, and Friendships. As I began to explain these 5 Targets to people, they would always ask the same question.
“What about fun?”
My response was always the same. “Fun” is not something we pursue in and of itself on a daily basis. Fun is a byproduct of having the proper perspective in pursuit of the most important areas of life.
As I cemented the 5 targets, I began thinking through how specifically each target could be lived out every day. So I created a Mind Map that you can download here to give you a better idea of what this looks like.
Faith
Faith is our belief that Jesus was born of a virgin, led a sinless life, died on the cross, and then rose 3 days later giving us the gift of eternal life. That’s the world’s most condensed version of the gospel. We have faith that this occurred. It either is absolutely true, or I’m crazy and out of my mind for believing a fantasy. Fortunately, I believe this to be true. I digress.
Faith is our foundation. It was what we put our hope in, and it allowed us to get through the most difficult of circumstances. Did you know that we can seek adventure in our faith? I never knew this was possible until I realized that the adventures of the Holy Spirit were quite often more challenging and adventurous than the adventures that I had dreamt up in my head.
So what is an adventure of the Holy Spirit? It’s quite simple. The Holy Spirit has a way of twinging our hearts ever so slightly when we know the right answer to something. For example, when we are considering how to handle a specific situation there is always a right way and a not-so-right way. The Holy Spirit tugs at us just enough to let us know the right thing to do.
I remember when I first felt the nudge to have a conversation with my dad about potentially selling his insurance agency. I didn’t think it was my place to say because I wasn’t an owner. The tug stayed for weeks. It never got stronger, but it also never got weaker. So I finally had the conversation. It set off a whirlwind of changes in our lives that ultimately led to the pursuit of our dreams. That’s what the adventure of the Holy Spirit is. It’s giving in to the nudging and tugging of the Holy Spirit.
Faith also consists of scripture through the Bible, worship at church on Sunday, and the belief that God is for us, not against us. Of all 5 targets, faith is the most important because it is the foundation for all other targets.
Family
Since The Rugged Face is designed for families, I am going to stick with the two demographics that we most want to impact – marriages and kids. Of course, there are brothers and sisters, moms and dads, crazy cousins and loopy uncles. Our mission is to impact families, so for us, our second target is choosing to seek adventure with our spouses and our children.
What does this look like? Adventure with our families can be as simple as a Saturday morning walk or as complex as moving to a new country for 4 months. We’ve done both!
Adventure is also deciding whether to give $1,000 to your single-income friends whose car just blew its engine. It can also mean having the conversation that the church you attend is no longer preaching truth from scripture. Family adventure is pursuing your dreams together. When we focus on our families and find adventure together, we develop a bond and a strength to endure through the toughest of times.
During our time in Colorado, we continually leaned on one another when times were tough. Quick day trips to Breckenridge and Denver, Saturday mornings at Garden of the Gods, and donuts at Hurts Donuts at 9:00 at night kept provided immense joy despite some circumstances that were less than ideal.
Further, adventure also lets your kids know that the Lord is calling you to another job in another city. Adventure means letting your spouse in on an addiction you’ve struggled with. The adventures of a family lead to a life filled with honesty and transparency as well as meaning and purpose. Next to faith, family is the most important of the 5 targets to understand.
Finances
What I mean by finances is our work and our money. Finding adventure in work and money? Is that even a thing? Yeah, it actually is!
When we seek adventure in our work, it can look several different ways. First, it may mean ending the job you’ve had for 10 years to start your own company. It may involve asking your boss for a promotion or a raise – a conversation you’ve needed to have for months. Adventure may also mean that you start that side hustle that ultimately becomes your income one day.
Adventure in our work is finally saying yes to the things we’ve felt the call to do for a long time. Giving two week’s notice because your boss is a terrible human is not necessarily an adventure. However, finally having the courage to tell your boss that he or she is a terrible human, or maybe some nicer words, can be an adventure.
What about adventure with our personal finances? Adventure with money can be several different things. First, it can simply mean you purchase that cold plunge or sauna you’ve been looking at on Amazon. I use that as an example because it’s true of me as I write this. In fact, I want this one. Or, financial adventure may mean giving away some of your valuable resources to someone in need. It may mean purchasing some groceries from a church member who is enduring a difficult time.
One thing that I’ve found is that financial adventure is one of the most important things to say yes to. This is due to my incessant nature to compare myself financially with other people. The fact that we feel called to generosity and giving eliminates that ability to compare with others. It’s not about what we make or what we have in the same way it’s not about what we choose to give away. Every dollar that comes in can possibly be used to provide for someone else. It’s not ours. We’re just the stewards of it.
Fitness
Fitness is one of those things that many people are afraid of or simply don’t value. And I think it’s ridiculous. You have one body and one life. Take care of it. There are no excuses for time, lack of resources to go to a gym, or inability to eat the right way. We all give our time to something. We all can find 20 minutes of wasted time every single day to be active. Eating healthy is not expensive if you purchase it the right way. Gyms are irrelevant when there are bodyweight exercises you can do at any time.
My point is that finding adventure in our health and fitness is accessible to everyone. Far too often, we don’t allow ourselves to embrace health and fitness. Rather, we tend to work too much, drink too much, fill up our schedules too much, and scroll social media so much that we “believe” we don’t have time for health. This is stupid.
Being healthy allows us to embrace adventure in other areas of our lives. Being physically healthy allows us to climb mountains, play pickleball, race our kids, and compete in Spartan races. Further, being healthy emotionally allows us to have hard conversations with our spouses or kids. Having spiritual health allows us to pursue the adventure the Lord is calling us to in the healthiest manner possible.
Physical, emotional, and spiritual health is vital to participating in adventure with the Lord.
Friendships
Friendships are the fifth and final target. Simply stated, friendships are the hardest target to focus on the older your kids get. We have 4 kids. Our friendships are not the focus they once used to be. Friendships are seasonal. They come and go. We’ve seen great friends of ours slowly begin to move on from our lives. It’s just natural.
Finding adventure in your friendships means fighting for the most important ones. You can’t try to maintain every friendship you’ve ever had. That’s not sustainable. However, holding on to those 1 or 2 relationships that you truly know you desire is the proper perspective. We have several relationships that we keep up with in Colorado. We may only talk twice per year, but we are still in a relationship with them from afar. Others, we Marco Polo with every day or every other day.
Further, adventure in friendships may mean stating the hard thing at the right time. This was my experience with an old friend a few years ago. I stated the truth, he didn’t like it and proceeded to distance himself from me for almost two and a half years. By distance, I mean he didn’t speak to me. It was quite the experience. However, I knew I was right and I waited until his offenses were removed. That’s an adventure with friendships. Friendships provide the most difficult interactions of all the 5 targets because they are the most unreliable in that there are two unrelated, sinful humans trying to figure out the best way to handle a situation.
Conclusion
So, adventure is our purpose and our mission. Whether we’re considering our faith, family, finances, fitness, and friendships, adventure is the one thing we recommend pursuing all the time. You will make the wrong choice from time to time. However, when we seek the guidance of the Holy Spirit, we get to experience the beauty of adventure and the effects it has on our lives. Understanding the 5 targets allows you to place the property weight on each one as you see fit.
About the Author
John Claborn
Hi! I’m John. Author of the post you just read. I like to write about all things adventure. Mostly things to help people live more adventurous lives and care for their families in a more meaningful way. By day, I’m a COO. By night, I’m a rad dad of 4 kids that I don’t deserve and a husband to a woman I can’t understand how I got. My goal is to show freedom to people through adventure and experiences.
