I would go to the gym today, but…

I would write today, but…

I would weigh less, but…

I would try, but…

I would care, but…

We love our but’s. Take the word but out of your vocabulary. If you do, you have just given yourself unbelievable power to accomplish your dreams. Try saying that sentence again and replace the word but with something else. Go ahead…try it. You are going to sound like a fool trying to figure it out. Then, you will wonder why you are giving yourself a reason why you can’t do it in the first place. You will hear your voice, and find a way to make it happen.

I have a big knee brace that I wear to my workouts. There is no reason why I cannot go harder or as hard as other people in the gym. Sometimes though I have to modify what my workout is. That is perfectly okay. The results of eating clean and working hard are showing. I am feeling healthy, my abs are coming in, and I feel powerful. None of this would happen if I had the word ‘but’ in my vocabulary. I always actively try to find ways to make things happen. I might not have the answer right now… and that is okay. I will find it though, or find someone who can help me find it.

There is this Malcolm X speech where he talks about living as a man who died 20 years ago. He has no fear because his fear died with his old life a long time ago. I think that is such a motivational and interesting way to live your life. We all have the ability to live that way. It is a progress however. You have to put your mind to it and really try to achieve that mindset. The mind is a just as important as training the body…maybe even more.

These are precisely the words I said to my buddy this morning walking into the gym. He goes, “Hey how you doing?” I said, “My body does not want to be here…but I do…lets crush it today.” To me, there is no such thing as a plateau. Plateauing is an excuse for most who refuse to change up their workouts or push themselves past their comfort zone. I have plenty of moments each day in the gym where I go “I don’t know if I can do this!” What takes over however is my mental attitude of doing one thing a day thats scares you…and sacrificing today for the betterment of tomorrow. With that attitude, you can take on the world. Of course you are going to be scared and have a little bit of fear in you…sometimes a lot of fear. YOU CAN DO IT! If you have a dream, go get it, period.

The critics are allowed to use ‘but.’ Lets leave that job up to them…the men who are not in the arena taking their lives to the next level…just telling you you aren’t good enough. T. R. said this,

“It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat.”

– Citizenship in a Republic, Speech at the Sorbonne, Paris

Live in possibility today.

Evan Sanders
The Better Man Project