Tag: potential

Discipline

You need to have discipline to reach your potential. When people say they can’t wake up early, can’t find time to go to the gym, can’t eat the right foods, etc. what I hear is an excuse. You can have results or excuses, not both. If you want something bad enough you will find away. If you don’t, you will find an excuse. Don’t say I can’t. Say how can I?

Are you justifying your fears?

Stop justifying your fears just so you can stay in your comfort zone. If you do so, you are deliberately holding yourself back, even if it is subconsciously. You give yourself an excuse or you say things like, “well I didn’t really want that anyways,” or, “I have to give up too much to get that,” just to make yourself feel better about not getting what you really want.

In reality, all of the best things in life take work to get. Sometimes, it takes a lot of work. Because if it was easy, everyone would do it.

If you’re OK with taking it easy and not living life to the fullest, that’s OK too. That’s part of the trade-off. But at least be honest with yourself… It’s not because you didn’t really want it, it’s because you didn’t want to have to do what it takes to get it.

Consistency, intensity, and reaching your full potential

Consistency trumps intensity, but you will never achieve your full potential without both.

If you do something once, you can’t reasonably expect results to come from it immediately. If you cold call one person, don’t expect one sale. If you work out one time, don’t expect six pack abs. If you make a one-time stock purchase, don’t expect to be able to retire tomorrow…

Consistency is about continually doing the bare minimum that you need to do in order to improve 1% that day. You have to consistently do the right things to achieve great results.

Intensity is another tool we should utilize to achieve the best results though…Sometimes it’s OK to stay up late and cram in a study session, but it’s not sustainable. If you do that every night, eventually you’ll crash. If you push it hard in the gym that’s great, but if you’re so sore that you can’t workout for a week afterwards, how much good did it really do? So many people follow diet programs or participate in 30-day challenges, which again, can be great, but when you stop following that, are you keeping the majority of the good behaviors or falling back into bad habits?

Intensity can help you achieve amazing results, but you need to have a stopping point. If you’re always doing things in an unsustainable manner, you’re going to burn out. It’s almost like redlining an engine for a car…you can ramp up to RPMs to pass somebody, but if you’re only driving in the redline, you’ll burn up you engine and do more harm than good.

When you decrease the intensity, you need to think of it like turning down the dimmer on a light switch. You’re not flicking a light switch on and off, just like you are not turning your intensity on and off. Because what usually happens there is you become an all-or-nothing person. You either work out really hard or you don’t work out at all. You eat extremely clean for 30 days, then you fall off the wagon. You invest a couple of times, then you don’t touch or even look at your retirement account for a year…you will yo-yo with manic highs and lows, and you’ll never reach your full potential.

Consistency needs to be the foundation of your success. That needs to be your number one goal – find something you know you should be doing everyday and do it. Don’t break the streak, but if you do, get back up and start it over immediately. Once you’ve found something that you can consistently do, focus on turning up the intensity more frequently. The more often you can do this, the better results you’ll get in a shorter timeframe.

Adversity, self-improvement, and fulfillment

Challenge and adversity sucks when you’re in the thick of it. It can seem like the hardship will never end. But just like all good things must come to an end, so too must all bad things. Life goes on – it stops for no one and nothing.

The great part about overcoming adversity is that it tests you and lets you know what you’re really made of. When life seems too easy and you’re completely comfortable, we often lack the intrinsic motivation to strive for self-improvement. But when we face difficulties and need to get something done, often times you will rise to the challenge. How will we know our limits if we never challenge ourselves (or are not challenged by outside circumstances)?

Think about how you can push yourself today – how you can test yourself. Have you been living a soft, cushy life for too long now? If so, do you feel that you’ve come close to reaching your full potential or is there more to go? And the other, more important, question…do you even care to reach your full potential? There’s no judgment if you don’t. You need to feel fulfilled and only you can determine that.