effort | The Caleb Barney Collection

The pursuit of your potential

You should always look at results through the lens of did you try your best and did you max out your potential. It is better to play your best game and still lose to somebody who is better than you at that particular moment than it is to play substandard to your potential and blow the other team out. This may sound add to those who are ultra competitive, but think of it this way…

Would you rather play an intense game, give it your all, and lose by a single point to one of your peers? Or would you rather not really try (or care) and easily beat a child at a game? Which would give you more satisfaction?

Try to live up to your potential in everything you do. We are not all created equal with our talents, but we are not all going to give equal effort. If you try your best, and you know there is nothing else you could have done, that’s all you can ask for.

Mindset

Work on having a growth mindset, where you’re open to the possibility of changing and growing your abilities. Just because you can’t do something right now doesn’t mean that you’ll never be able to do it. The only way that you know for sure that you won’t be able to do something is if you stop trying to improve yourself. The same can be said if you are already good at something. If you have a fixed mindset, you may think that you don’t have to try because you’ll always be good at that thing. But if you stop working at something because you feel your abilities are “fixed,” you will soon be surpassed by those who are working harder than you.

So how do you work on having a growth mindset? Understand that everyone has to start somewhere. Some people will naturally have more ability than others, but no matter where you start, you can always improve if you’re willing to make an effort. Realize that if you want to improve, you’re going to have to push the boundaries of your comfort and, as a result, you’ll fail often. Don’t be afraid of failure. Embrace it and use it as a stepping stone towards your eventual success. It can only truly be considered a failure if you quit afterwards. Otherwise it’s just more experience for you to learn from.

Competing and confidence

Be confident in your ability to compete. You don’t have to win every time. You won’t win every time. But you can always compete…Try your hardest, have a good attitude whether you win or lose, and make sure you learn from your experiences.

If you don’t like losing, keep practicing. Keep competing. Be a student of the game. What worked well before and what didn’t work? How can you implement what worked and reduce what didn’t to get more consistent results? Become an expert in whatever it is you’re trying to do. With competence comes confidence.

Forget perfect

Perfectionism is the killer of dreams. It kills dreams before they even get started because nothing will ever be perfect. If you wait for everything to be perfect to take action, or if you keep tweaking something and decide not to launch it because it’s not perfect, you’ll never end up doing anything.

Instead of waiting for perfect, just take action! Action is almost always better than inaction. Don’t procrastinate. Don’t overthink. Don’t let outside circumstances dictate what you can do. Just do it. You may stumble and fall along the way, but as long as you keep getting up and trying again, you’ll be ahead of where you would have been if you never tried. And who knows, maybe you’ll stumble over something better than you ever expected…

“Keep on going and chances are you will stumble on something, perhaps when you are least expecting it. I have never heard of anyone stumbling on something sitting down.” – Charles Kettering

Luck and work

“Care and diligence bring luck.” – Thomas Fuller

Sometimes, you have to make your own luck. It’s not always the case, and it doesn’t always come easy, but if you work hard at doing the right things and treating people the right way, good things often come to you.

If you feel like you’re unlucky, that just means you have to work harder and focus on the positives around you. The world isn’t out to get you. It just is what it is. It’s not going out of its way to hurt or help you. You have to work as hard as you can, controlling what you can, and let everything else fall into place.