We are here for a limited time. Our lives should revolve around supporting both ourselves and one another to arrive at the auditorium of our own decisions, swinging open the doors with our heads held high, puffing our chests out and announcing our arrival.
They should revolve around supporting ourselves and one another to break down the walls of self-imposed limitations imposed by our conditioning and set out to achieve what we were born to achieve.
They should revolve around guiding each other home.
Every feeling we have has its root in thought. These feelings are not a reflection of the world around us.
We live in the shadow of our thinking, not in the feeling of our circumstances.
Developing the discipline to consistently give our brain the direction we desire has huge implications.
We have to align our intention to match the reality we want if we desire a certain reality. “The idea is to preserve nothing and sacrifice everything,” Stan Beecham writes in Elite Minds. Few will implement this to the degree with which it is intended, but it is at this point you really start to live. It is at the point whereby you risk losing everything that you give yourself the opportunity to gain so much more.
New goals don’t deliver new results. New lifestyles do. And a lifestyle is a process, not an outcome.
“For this reason, your energy should go into building better habits, not chasing better results.”
— James Clear
And when failure comes—which it will—we must rethink our aversion to it. We must become comfortable in viewing it, not as terminal, but as a stepping stone to crafting our success.
One of the reasons we are so averse to failure is that it is uncomfortable. We like to win.
KEEP LEANING INTO LOSS UNTIL YOU DISCOVER THE GAIN.
Failure has not, and will never be, a reflection of who we are as human beings. It is simply a circumstance. It can be viewed as an opportunity.
Failure provides us with the opportunity to analyse the situation from other angles, inviting us to get comfortable with the underlying structure of the process and deeply understand it.
It is certainly not something to shy away from unless our intention is to remain where we are.
“When you do something successfully,” Dr. Jordan Paul writes in his book, Becoming Your Own Hero, “you will know you really are capable of accomplishing it. When you know you can fail and still thrive, you will not fear failure. When you learn you can feel your deep pain and joy and still thrive, you will not fear your emotions. By your willingness to be more of the person you really are, you will allow yourself to be openhearted and thus feel like your own hero more of the time.”
By actively avoiding failure we are only reaching a fraction of our true potential. By actively avoiding failure we are only reaching a fraction of our true capabilities. By actively avoiding failure we are doing ourselves a great disservice. How are we ever to know what we are capable of if we never reach the limit of our capabilities? How will we ever experience the joy associated with skirting the far reaches of our efforts?
Work hard until you realise there is no such thing as failure. You either win or you learn.
Do you think you’ll lie on your deathbed wishing that you hadn’t been as true to yourself as you had been? Can you honestly say you’ll lay there wishing you hadn’t given so much of yourself to life? Will you regret all the times you had given something your all? Tried as hard as you had? As long as I continue looking after myself and living as close to my truth as possible, I know I won’t, and that is an absolute guarantee.
START THINKING AND ACTING LIKE THE PERSON YOU WISH TO BECOME. BEGIN TO FOCUS ON BEHAVING IN A WAY THAT HONOURS YOUR VALUES AND DEEPEST TRUTHS.
NOBODY ELSE CAN MAKE THIS CHOICE—IT IS UP TO YOU AND YOU ALONE.
There are often people that talk amongst themselves and look alarmed when I am working out at the gym, but gone are the days when it bothers me. They truly are missing out. Roaring and singing, red-faced and trembling, I am in my own world of absolute effort and I love it. I am deeply connected and get so much joy from pushing myself to the limits of my endurance.
I growl when I’m working with the dumbells and sing whilst on the bikes, profoundly in love with the state of being alive. It is no measure of health to be well-adjusted to a profoundly sick society.
I move around the gym helping people with their workouts, encouraging them to reach beyond what they believed to be their limits. “Dig deep! Let’s go! Now we’re working!” Together, we touch the joy and elation reserved exclusively for moments whereby one is skirting the limits of what is possible. The gym is like a metaphor for life. “Come on, focus! You’ve got this!“
I have fallen so completely in love with the process of unlocking the potential of myself and others that I have walked in the gym singing at the top of my voice before. I have walked in there roaring like a lion at others. Find out where you fit into this world so you don’t have to buy yourself into it.
Working with those who were on the cliff edge was also extraordinarily intense at times. The adrenaline, the danger, the awareness that one wrong move could further galvanise somebody’s longing to leave their pain behind…