Most people are motivation-reliant. They search for the motivation to continue to attempt great things, but motivation is fleeting at best. It comes and goes in short spurts. In the beginning of anything, it is easy to be motivated because something is new and exciting. As the journey gets more dull and difficult, motivation wanes. This is the reason why motivation is not a resource we can rely on to reach our potential. Emotions in general are a terrible foundation for success. When success is on the horizon, the steps to achieve it are oftentimes apparent, but difficult. When motivation wanes, we look for shortcuts. The only way to unlock your full potential is to put emotions to the side and develop the discipline to create the habits you need for success at whatever it is you’re trying to accomplish.
Who could you have become?
Certified badass David Goggins paints a vivid image of what a life full of wasted potential can look like at the end and the regret you will face as a result. Imagine for a second you passed away and you were on your way to be judged by a higher power, whatever that is that you may believe in. When you get there the higher being shows you all the things you left on the table for yourself during your life. You marvel and are filled with regret seeing all you could have accomplished had you had the discipline and courage to take continuous action on your goals regardless of motivation or level of difficulty. This is David Goggins’s biggest fear, and after hearing him speak about this on The Joe Rogan Experience Podcast, it became mine as well. How much could you be leaving on the table by not giving every day your all? Skipping out on something you know will make you better because you don’t feel like doing it has a ripple effect over time. It reinforces the wrong behaviors and introduces the wrong outcomes as possibilities in your life. When your time on Earth is over, do you want to be able to reflect on all the things you accomplished and all the lives you’ve touched along the way? Or would you rather feel the sting of regret knowing you left so much on the table and didn’t have the impact you were capable of having. This conundrum scares me to death and helps me create the discipline and desire I need to pursue my goals relentlessly. Hopefully this paradox can do something similar for you.
Discipline and habits over motivation every time
The key to success is to develop the habits you need through discipline to make success inevitable. All of my life, I had always affirmed to myself that I am not a runner and I could never do anything of that magnitude physically. I had always been more comfortable in the weight room so I gravitated towards that naturally. I don’t like to run. As a matter of fact, a part of me never wants to run again! I silence that part of me every morning that I have a scheduled run and go out and get it done. I am going to begin training for an ultramarathon this spring. This will require me to run dozens of miles a week during training. Reaching a goal like this and changing my habits to seek out my full potential is so rewarding. Doing things we don’t want to do and being able to accomplish feats we never thought possible is so rewarding. It makes the process worth the struggle. If you’re out there testing the limits of your potential every day in all different regards of your life, you’ll undoubtedly leave nothing left on the table when it’s all over.
Silencing the voice in our head
We all have that voice in our head that warns us against difficulty and risk. It scares us into self limiting belief where we don’t bet on ourselves to pursue our limits in all facets of our lives. That voice exists to shelter us from immediate pain. The problem is humans achieve the most success when they delay gratification. This inherently means that the process to that gratification will be painful and that is something we are biologically engineered to oppose! We need to either silence this voice or act against it in most instances to reach our potential. There is risk in everything. When we don’t take “risk” financially, we end up a tax paying slave working for decades to pay 1/3 of our money to the government and then living off of their programs in retirement with nothing to show for your hard work until you eventually die with nothing. When we don’t take “risk” physically, we end up a fat and lazy couch potato with all the health issues in the world, a slave to big pharma and its never ending prescriptions for things you can control on your own. What kind of life does that sound like? Unfortunately, it’s the life many of us choose subconsciously, and that behavior can take root in one’s subconscious over the course of decades until it’s so ingrained in us that we can no longer get out of our own way. People are so inclined to blame their misfortune on extraneous circumstances. The economy, politicians, the market, and so on and so forth. In reality, this is just a coping mechanism because YOU CHOOSE not to pursue your fullest potential. When we silence the doubt in our heads and get over our fears by pursuing things that make us uncomfortable, your potential becomes limitless. What kind of life will you choose? Regardless of what stage of life you find yourself in currently, the best time to decide is RIGHT NOW!
!