For some reason today feels like a good day to write about discipline. Okay, I know the reason, but you’ll have to find out at the end. I came across a really good quote today about discipline, which said “Discipline is doing what you don’t want to do when you don’t want to do it.” Yup, that sounds about right. I can’t tell you how many times I have stated “I am going to eat healthy for the next 30 days” or that “I am going to get a 6 pack in 6 weeks” or “Time to finish p90X 90 days through.” While I did have some good reasons for not finishing those things (injuries, bad timing, etc) I now look at them and see excuses rather than reasons. Everyone has excuses for everything. Not doing well, failing, etc. I am not saying its not okay to do those things, however, personally I hate losing and hate failing. Sometimes that mentality gets me into trouble, but more or less it drives me to become better and better every day. Thats what this Better Man Project is about right?
What this all comes down to is a lack of discipline. Recently, I have come into some more time to spend on myself. So what am I going to do with this time? Well, I am going to tell you everything I am going to do and you can keep me accountable for it.
1. 6 weeks from tomorrow, which is Tuesday April 12, I will have a six pack, no excuses.
2. On average, when I don’t have work, I will be on the third floor library studying for 2-4 hours. Recently, over the past week, I have spent from the time I get out of workouts (3:30pm) to 11 or 12 in the library, you do the math.
3. I am going to make the Iron Broncos 100% into the club I want it to be. 500 members by the end of the year with 20 trainers. I also want to start the breast cancer awareness shirts which we will donate money to the Breast Cancer Foundation.
4. I am going to make a much more active effort in developing myself at school and into securing my future.
5. Every day, I will work on becoming a better man. It might not end up on here of what I am doing that day, but I will pick out one thing I really want to work on that day and go for it.
I feel like these 5 things are really good to be working on over the next six weeks. It is known that any thought, goal, plan or idea held continuously in the conscious mind, must be brought into our reality by the superconscious mind. This applies for both positive and negative things. Our lives are nothing more than the expression of our current conscious thoughts. My mind is going to be rigorously focused and disciplined on what I want in life rather than what I fear in life. In the past, I have thought a lot about what I fear. I fear being alone, failing at school, injuring myself, losing loved ones, the list goes on and on. But you can’t live your life fearing what could happen, because you will let yourself down, and most likely the things you fear most will come true. Also, you can’t live your life dwelling on what has happened in the past. If you want something bad enough, you will do what you have to do to get there, no matter how hard it is. I know exactly what I want, and that doesn’t have a timetable yet, but I will work as hard as I can to make that happen, even if I am blind to the amount of time it takes. Committed? Oh you have no idea. It consumes my dreams recently. Lululemon has us listen to a very famous psychologist and motivation speaker named Brian Tracy, who talks about everything that basically relates to human consciousness. One of my favorite tapes of him however is how he describes how successful people deal with situations. What I learned from this is that the things happen in our lives are not “problems” but rather “opportunities, challenges, or situations.” Once we get rid of the word problem we enable ourselves to look for solutions (it also takes all of the stress out of the situation). This has been one of the biggest life changers for me recently. Yeah, I recently have been faced with something that wasn’t an ideal circumstance, but look at what this situation has given me the chance to do. I have the opportunity to come back an even better person than I was before, I have the chance to rid myself of all my fears in this world and enable myself to love even more than I did before. I know there really is only one person in this world that has been able to take all of the love that can possibly seep out of me, and she has given me this great opportunity. I can’t tell you how happy I am with life right now. I can finally begin breathing again from having the wind knocked out of me consecutive times. It feels amazing. I have come to terms with time, and know inside that it is worth the wait. How could it not be? I feel like I have the heart of a lion ready to tackle anything that comes my way. And honestly, this attitude has allowed me to sit down and really start disciplining myself. The things I want in my life, they feel like they are right within my grasp, and I am going to do everything I can to get there. It was easy for me to go day to day and do things at 90%…but thats not the type of man I want to be. 100%, on everything, every time, no excuses. It will be hard to fight against the want to give a decent effort on some things, but this war can be won. And I will win it.
In the past week, I am proud of how I have responded to a little bit of adversity. This is how I know I am becoming a better man. The things I am thinking about, consuming my mind with, and developing myself into are really starting to come out in how I react and act. For the past few days, you couldn’t smack the smile off my face. You remember my post Beautiful? Yeah, wow, what a turn around. Then look at Happiness…thats what happens when you have amazing friends, and also a desire to feel better and be a better person. That takes discipline. I have these amazing goals in my mind, and have never achieved them at full force. Well ladies and gentlemen, here comes full force. Watch.
Evan Sanders
The Better Man Project