This Blog Is Only Practice.
Play it near the vest.
For years, I’ve told people everything I’m going to do.
I’ve had ridiculous sales plans that are dependent on me doing unpleasant things for four or five hours a day.
I’ve telegraphed every move and I’ve had a litany of failure at times.
Now, i’ve changed my mind a bit. I’m playing things closer to the vest.
It’s working out.
How well, we’ll let you know momentarily.
Let’s say you do something great, for one day.
Let’s say you put forth maximum effort for one day, and had one of those times that you just were working fluidly, productively and zealously.
We’ll revisit our gym metaphor. Let’s say you went to the gym, and lit up your soul. You did it with passion, ferocity and intensity.
You seared your lungs, and you did just about every rep right. You let it all out, and you left with nothing more to give.
You are proud. Rightly so. You’ve won the day. You’ve answered the bell. The best part of your soul has commanded the unruly pile of meat that is your body to do its bidding.
More days like this, and it won’t be long before you have the form you want. To reach your goals.
You deserve a reward, don’t you? You deserve something for the work you put in, because you’ve reached a goal. You need a treat to stay motivated.
.:.
What, then, do you get for having made it? For having lived in congruence with the best part of you?
.:.
Here’s the reward for you–and I think it’s very, very nice.
You get another day to feel this proud and good. More motions like this. More euphoria. You get another day to beat back the inevitable decay of life, and you get another day to walk the earth like an unstoppable bad-ass.
You get to have more trust and faith in yourself, and more confidence, and even integrity.
.:.
What Is Intensity Without Consistency
Do we know any pleasure that’s better than that? Is a day off better than feeling unstoppable? Will we derail ourselves from our goals by justifying a trip to Krispy Kreme?
There’s nothing better than leaving it all out there.
The other part of the equation is this: if you don’t leave it all out there, if you flake out tomorrow, then you get to undo what went right today.
If, tomorrow, you skip the gym to bask in the good feeling and justify it with a good day, you’ve undone the good day, and you’ve surrendered your gains.
The only way to change something is to hammer. away. consistently.
You don’t hit a goal with a sprint, you hit a goal by moving in the same direction relentlessly.
When we have a great day, the only answer is another great day. We’ve proven we can, and we have to protect the work that we just did by doing it again, tomorrow.
More coming soon.
Another idea:
Instead of thinking that we ‘have to’ do things, let’s focus on the notion that we get to do things.
Being put upon is the de facto motif in the human existence.
But what if we changed that? What if we controlled our thoughts?
I was talking to Heather yesterday about my own failure to get to the gym as often as I wanted. Because it feels like a chore, I’ve not gone as much as I could. Because I have dreaded it. Man, I have to go to the gym. Sucks.
We rebel against that. Our inner two-year old kicks in. We say, “you’re not the boss of me.” So instead of going to the gym, doing our work, we do what we want. It’s hard to shake entitlementality.
What if…
…instead of acting as if it was something I “had” to do, something I was burdened to do…
….I treated everything that I do as a privilege. Everything. From paying bills (I get to support my family) to going to the gyms (I get to get rid of my front-butt). What if I changed the way I thought of each activity….to an opportunity in lieu of a burden?
Then: what if I didn’t expect pleasure. What if I “got to” go to the gym, and considered it a privilege? What if I trained myself where I “got to” enjoy the opportunity to help a client, to carry water, or to shovel snow? What if I got to do things instead of had to?
If mentally, I wasn’t stuck presuming or focusing on my own pleasure, would I be test about the predictable and mundane things that try and sap our focus?
Would I be stoppable?
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Now, I know that most of my readers will say things like “Chris, you can’t always feel this way.” No arguments here. “Chris, this is purely puerile Pollyanna pablum.” Possibly.
When we treat something as an opportunity, a privilege we get a bounce in our step. We lose the drudgery. When we try to snap back to this mode, I can see it as a wonderful thing.
I love my kids, a lot, and they’re damned lucky because they can be annoying. But in lieu of “I have to put up with Jack/Change a Diaper,” what if it was all “I get to.”
What if we put more and more of our activities under that umbrella?
“Oh, boy, I get to go to the grocery store and get some food for our family!”
is stronger than
“Oh, man, I have to go to the grocery store in the cold, driving rain, this sucks,” which makes you defeated before you start.
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So that’s saying, when you decide on what tasks need to be accomplished, enhance the link between their completion and your joy. “I get to finish X,Y or Z” is more powerful–by far–than saying “I have to do X, Y or Z”.
When we think this way–a secondary consequence is that we are generally happier. It feels better to be doing something you relish than doing some tedious chore.
What chores are predictable that you don’t like? How can you re-frame them (oh, boy I get to finish the laundry).
How do you know you’re doing what you should be doing–and what is part of your nature?
How will you feel when you see things as choices and loving privs, rather than bad things?
This is the personal site of Chris Johnson where we blog about entrepreneurship, dealing with emotion and sales. And anything else moderately to majorly interesting. You can subscribe in the box below.
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