HOW HARD IS WINNING?

Winning is hard. But it's not THAT hard. 

It’s probably harder than you will expect it to be, but it’s not impossible. If it was, no one would win.

Winning is hard, but not in the way you think.

Winning is hard but not impossible…it’s not impossible hard. We aren’t talking about things you can’t do. Winning is hard but it’s not like being “drug behind a truck or something.” as my friend Jim Gudger once said.

What “kind” of hard is Winning?

It's “doing things you'd rather not do” hard. 

One of the hardest things for a person to do is to get themselves to “do things they’d rather not do.”

As a result, when faced with the necessity of doing them to get where they want to go, they talk about how hard it is.

It’s not really hard. It’s just that they don’t want to do it.
The discipline of doing things whether you want to or not is something you have to learn. That is the key discipline that takes you from amateur to professional status.

Winner’s do the things others won’t, so they can have the things others don’t. That’s exactly what’s “hard” about winning.

How Do You Get Super Discipline?

Super-successful people seem to have extraordinary discipline

Where does it comes from? How do they get it? How can you get it? You may have tried to force yourself into one extreme regimen or another and failed.

 

That makes it even more confusing. 

Are they born with it? Have they learned some trick? 

Is there a training camp you can go to and learn a discipline technique?

You can drive yourself crazy trying to figure it out.

You realize that it could make all the difference in your life but you also know you don’t have it yet.

Don’t get an inferiority complex. It’s not something you can impose on yourself.

You don’t get it from “trying,” it comes from the inside.

What you see as their highly disciplined lifestyle is simply a byproduct of the total excitement they have about what they are doing and the goals they are going for. It starts inside them. They have a passion. They have dreams worth pursuing.

Focus and Discipline are a by product of pursuing dreams

When you have big goals you want and you are totally convinced you can reach you are in a hurry. You don’t want to waste time. You don’t want to waste time and lose momentum. 

People who drift through life aren’t motivated

They have no reason to be focused and disciplined. It’s not that they couldn’t be, it’s just that they haven’t found a reason to. Since they have not found their purpose, they waste their lives.

Don’t let that be you.

The first thing you need is to lock in on what you really want to accomplish, the life you want and the things you want. What is it that’s important enough to you that you’ll be willing to fight to make it happen?

Once you lock in on it, you’ll start to take control over your time and get organized. You'll make ways to get things done, instead of finding distractions and reasons to procrastinate.

Discipline is a very good thing—it means you value your time and you take your life seriously. 

For Adults Only

The sooner you learn this lesson, the better your life will be.Purpose: To point out that the childish approach to life just creates stress and problems for adults

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Children don’t think this way.
When you’re a child you grow up helpless, with things done for you and since most of us start off with an absolutely amazing set of lungs to express displeasure over any slight little discomfort.

Adults quickly learn after bringing home this little package from the hospital that when baby is not happy, nobody’s happy. So we start out in life with everything revolving around us, because we are totally selfish and impatient dictators. We want what we want and we want it now!

You only get away with this when you are young
The process of growing up and becoming an adult is realizing you have to fit in in the world and you have to get certain things done, whether you are in the mood to do them or not. The reason for this is that as an adult you are expected to do things for yourself. All your childhood helpers are gone and you are expected to function as a responsible, independent, person. The sooner you realize the following statement is true the better…

“There’s never a good time to do things you don’t want to do.”

Just do it!
Life is divided into things that need to be done, have to be done, and the things that you’d rather be doing.  Eventually you realize that whether you want to do them or not doesn’t matter because they’ve got to get done. You realize that you can’t wait for inspiration to strike.

Your life becomes so much more free of stress if you just learn to bite the bullet and do the things that need to be done as quickly as possible. Then you can get them behind you and move on without the stress of those hanging over your head.  

That’s the way you stay in control of your life
That’s the way you keep the stress to a minimum. When we’re young we don’t want to go to school, we don’t want to do our homework, and we don’t want to brush our teeth. As we get older we don’t want to have to go to work and earn a living. Parents don’t want to get up in the middle of the night and comfort a screaming infant but guess what? They do. By doing the things that need to be done as fast as possible you create more space in your life for the things for the things you want to do. 

That’s life, that’s what adults do and the sooner you get clear on that the better. 

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Feedback: You know of any people who have never gotten clear on this issue?

Now or Never

Here’s What You Think...

When you avoid the decision to do something, you think you are just postponing the decision, the option is still on the table. You think you can, at any time decide to go forward. But that’s not how it works.

Suppose it was something important. Something you have been wanting to do, something you need to do. But for some reason you just can’t get yourself to do it right now. The perfect opportunity has come along, now is the time—you could get this behind you—but no. You decide "not now."

I’ll Do It Later

You think I’ll do it later. There's no rush. I’ll have a little more time later, a freer schedule. It's just not convenient right now. Timing is not quite right.

But you tell yourself, I’m going to do it, just not now.

You’ll Do It—Never

But here’s the truth. If you don’t do it now, you never will. Not now becomes never. You don’t intend for that to happen. You would swear it wouldn’t happen. But that’s what’s going to happen.

Maybe Later

When I was growing up, each night after dinner my mother would ask my father if he would like some dessert. He would consider it for a second, then pat his stomach, look at her sweetly and say, “Maybe later.” He didn’t want dessert. He was full already. But he didn’t want to disappoint her. So, he didn’t say no, he said “maybe later.”

Of course we understood what he meant, he didn’t want any dessert. Later never came. But it still made it more pleasant at dinner than abruptly saying no.

Delay Deludes

The trouble in life comes when we use the same delaying tactics to deal with difficult decisions and we delude ourselves. When faced with the decision to do something right now that we need to do should do, but don’t want to do right now, we say, "not now."

The time isn’t quite right. The truth is that the time is NEVER quite right. And we lie to ourselves thinking I’m REALLY going to do that later. A little later... 

The Truth

But the truth is this, if you don’t do it now, you never will. Not now becomes never. If you want to change your life, if you need to change your life, but the time is not convenient, don't kid yourself into thinking it ever will be convenient. There will never be a perfect time.

Wake Up and Decide Now, Because Tomorrow Will Never Come

Don't lie to yourself and say “Not now, maybe a little later, because later will never come and you will have forfeited your chance to make the changes you want.

REMEMBER…NOT NOW BECOMES NEVER… ALWAYS.

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What have you put off that you can do NOW? What are the things that keep you from moving forward NOW?