“I hated every minute of training, but I said, ‘Don’t quit. Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion.’” – Muhammad Ali
Do what you need to do now, even if you don’t feel like it, so you can set yourself up for success and reap the rewards later.
Does a farmer plant seeds only when he feels like it? No, because then when he needs to harvest his crop, it won’t be there!
Success takes time, it takes hard work, and it takes consistent action. If you work out once, you’re not going to have six pack abs. If you save money to invest one month, you’re not going to be able to retire off of it. But if you do those things consistently over time, you’ll eventually achieve things that most people aren’t disciplined enough to do.
“Suffer” now. “Sacrifice” now. Live below your means, take care of your mind, body, and spirit now. Do these things consistently and continued take massive actions daily, weekly, and monthly towards your goals, and you will achieve success. Think about your future self, not just about what you feel like doing right now.
Train your mind to be stronger than your emotions.
It doesn’t matter how much you want something, if you don’t train your mind to be stronger than your emotions, you’ll constantly be taking one step forward and two steps back.
Think about wanting to get in the best physical shape of your life. First, you need to set a SMART goal. Then, you need to figure out why that goal is important to you. After that, you need to put a plan in place to achieve your goal. During the planning period, you may be doing research to complete the perfect plan (which doesn’t exist), but that should not stop you from getting started (done is better than perfect). Lastly, you need to find an accountability partner who makes sure you are actively and consistently working towards your goal.
If you let your emotions take over (especially your negative emotions), you’ll find an excuse to not do what you know you need to be doing! It feels better (at the time) to stay in your warm, comfy bed and sleep in. It feels better (at the time) to eat another serving or to have dessert or to have a bedtime snack. It feels better to sit on the couch and watch tv or scroll on Instagram. For every short-term pleasure, there is a long-term consequence. And if you really want to achieve your goals, you have to train your mind to be stronger than your emotions (and just doing what feels good in the moment).
So what’s more important to you? A little extra sleep? Or getting up, keeping that promise to yourself, and striving towards your goals?
Trust me, in the end, you will feel so much better about yourself knowing that you set a difficult goal and you achieved it. You persisted through the ups and downs. It was simple, but it wasn’t easy, and not many people are willing to do what you do to get what you want.
Train your mind. If you listen to your emotions, listen to the positive ones that are pushing you towards your goals. Use those! But steel your mind. Make it so strong that your negative emotions cannot overcome you when you put your mind to something.
Have you ever met someone who was head and shoulders better at what they did compared to others in their field? Chances are, this didn’t happen by accident. Natural ability can give you a leg up when you’re starting out, but to stand out amongst the standouts, you have to be obsessed with improving your craft.
Malcolm Gladwell touches on this with his 10,000 hour rule, where he states it takes approximately 10,000 hours of doing something to master it. You have to put in the practice and gain the experience to master something.
But it’s not just about going through the motions. You have to intentionally plan out what you’re going to do. You have to look at your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. You have to keep up with market trends and know the market so well that you can predict future trends. You have to eat, sleep, and breathe whatever it is you’re trying to be the best at in order to make it work. You need to read about it, talk about it, listen about it, connect with others who are experts, and go experience it for yourself. In short, you need to be obsessed or else you’ll end up “average.”
Part of success and of achieving goals is being consistent. Taking consistent action is the foundation for nearly every successful person. Do you think Tom Brady, Peyton Manning, Michael Jordan, or LeBron James would only work out or study tape when they felt like it? Or did they do something to improve themselves mentally and physically everyday? Their consistent actions of going to the gym everyday helped to get their body right and watching tape helped them understand defenses and get their mind right.
But just because you go to the gym everyday doesn’t automatically mean you’re going to get the results you want. That is part of the equation (a big part), but it’s not the only thing. But if you go to the gym and talk to people for a half hour then leave, are you going to achieve the physical goals that you set for yourself? Or if you are just “going through the motions,” and you don’t ever push yourself by trying to lift more weight, do more reps, take less rest period, or complete your routine in a faster time, are you really going to improve as much as you want?
Being present is great. It’s better than not being there. But don’t trick yourself or fall into the trap thinking that you’ve accomplished your goal just by being there. That’s part of the equation to success, but once you’re there, you need to put in focused, intentional work to achieve the results you want.
1) Be the hardest worker in the room. Get there first, leave there last, and be productive when you’re there. Work when you’re at work.
2) Question everything internally first. If a rule, a way of doing things, or a story doesn’t make sense to you, try to earnestly figure it out and come up with a solution. If you always question an authority figure out loud (and especially if you do it in front of others), it will be viewed as being disrespectful. But if you bring things to their attention when you don’t understand and you do it in private, they can respect that (as long as their ego is in check).
3) Be humble, yet confident. Let your actions and the results speak for you. Keep your head up, put a smile on your face, have good posture/don’t slouch, speak clearly/enunciate, speak loudly but not too loud, look at others in the eyes when you’re talking with them, and keep an open mind to changing/forming new opinions.
4) Don’t engage in gossip unless you are speaking positively about someone else/building them up. Never say something behind someone’s back that you wouldn’t say to their face. If you would say it to their face and it’s a big enough deal to bother you, bring that person aside and talk it out.
5) Stay in your lane, but be aware of what is happening in the lanes around you. Nobody wants someone in another department to butt in and tell them how to do their job. Focus on your tasks and your responsibilities. BUT, have a good understanding of what other departments do, what they do well and what they can improve upon. You don’t need to know how they do what they do, but if you want to rise in the ranks, you should at least know what they do.
