Tag: success

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.

Compound interest on the decisions you make

The best thing we have going for us is that we’re young and capable. Compound interest is our most trusted ally. Work hard and bust our butts (sacrifice) now so we can live like nobody else in the future.

Easy choices, hard life. Hard decisions, easy life.

Choose to do something difficult now that moves you closer to your goals. It’s always easier to put it off until tomorrow, but that will prolong the inevitable and works against your best interest.

Stop worrying about what other people think

Do not let the opinions of others (or, more accurately, what you think their opinions MIGHT BE), stop you from dreaming big and being true to yourself. We are all “weird” in one way or another. We’re all unique.

Stop trying to be like everyone else. The average American is overweight, in debt, and doesn’t like their job (life?)…why would you strive to be more like that?

Be true to yourself. Dream big, but more importantly, go after those dreams everyday. People may say that what’s you’re aiming for isn’t possible. But those people either don’t understand the dream, don’t understand the effort you’re willing to put in to make it happen, or don’t want you to succeed because it will make them feel worse about themselves. They’ll eventually come around when you start achieving success, and if they don’t, don’t worry about it. You can only control yourself – your thoughts/beliefs, actions/inactions, attitude, etc.

How to make BETTER decisions FASTER

Work on making BETTER decisions FASTER. If you can quickly grasp concepts, see the big picture, and make sure that your decision aligns with your goals and values, you will go far in life. GREAT leaders can make quick decisions that consistently are the correct decisions (or, at least, mostly correct and move themselves/the team in the right direction).

How can you do this?

1) Practice making decisions quickly on trivial matters. Don’t waste a bunch of time on a decision that doesn’t really matter (like what you’re eating for dinner, what movie you should watch tonight, etc). Practice making small decisions quickly and it will become easier to make bigger decisions quickly. If your decisions come with unintended negative consequences, at least it was over something trivial and you can easily recover from your “mistake.”

2) Be well-read. The more you read about many subjects, the better you can understand and relate concepts. If you have a great base knowledge over many subjects, you should be able to “pick up” a concept quickly. It’s incredible how many concepts overlap.

3) Know who you are. Know what you stand for, what you value, and what your core beliefs are. You should change over the years, but your core values should not. If something doesn’t align with how you believe you should act/behave, then don’t do it. It’s a rules-based system that automatically eliminates certain decisions for you, reducing your choices and making it easier for you to make better decisions quickly.

4) Know what you want/what your goals are. If you know you want six-pack abs, then you probably know you should workout everyday, eat healthy foods, drink plenty of water, and get plenty of sleep. You also probably know that means you shouldn’t binge on pizza and ice cream. When you know what your goals are, it will make it easier for you to make decisions which align with your goals. Make sure you review what it is that you want frequently to keep it top of mind.