“In the end these things matter most: How well did you love? How fully did you live? How deeply did you let go?” – Buddha
No one else is going to do it for you. People may try. You may let them. But at the end of the day, it all comes down to you, the life you choose to live, and how you live it.
Today, right in this moment, if you are trying to make a change, you have to be that person you want to be. You have to act like it even if you have to fake it for a while. The faking it part isn’t about convincing other people of who you are but rather priming the pump for you to understand the person you need to be. It’s going to be hard and challenging, but at the end of the day all of it is worth it. It’s worth every growing pain there is. Sometimes it’s not even going to be yourself that helps you grow, but rather another person. Their example sets everything in motion and you see a way you can live your life.
There is a very powerful motivator in tapping into wanting to prove people wrong. I believe in the power of positive energy, thoughts, vibes, whatever you want to call it…but I am also no fool. I know how impossibly hard it is sometimes to achieve a dream and that sometimes, hopefully not often but just sometimes, you have to tap into those feelings. If you can tap into the negative emotions and create a positive result from them then by all means go for it.
I say this with assuming you are doing something for the right reasons at its core.
That has to be the first thing you address in your journey. The core reasons of why you are doing something. IF you are doing them for the right reasons then the world is your oyster. But if you aren’t, and this is coming from deep experience, you will fail over and over again because your reasons are shallow. I’ve been there and suffered the consequences of using the negative energy as the primary motivator for driving my goal.
You have to do things for you. There has to be a substantial deep seeded reason for you to want to undergo the pain and suffering that comes along with trying to stretch yourself into something that you aren’t right now.
The battle is in your mind.
If you can win that battle in your mind then you can do anything else. That is where the enemy is going to fight you. Soreness rarely will keep you out of the gym. Tiredness yes…but what is it when you wake up one morning and you are beat tired and somehow drag yourself out of bed? That wasn’t your body getting you out. That was your mind. I still set three alarms at 4:45am 4:48am and 4:53am because I know that my mind might fail or convince myself the first time that ringer goes off, but I can get my butt out of bed no matter the condition a second or third time.
Life hack. Try it.
You have to find ways to fight back agains the things that are keeping you from doing what you want to do in your mind. That is the hardest part about daily life. We all have things that we need to do, then we have dreams we want to achieve. It is beyond easy to just continue putting it off because you are tired. You MUST find ways past that. I have found a few that really work for me and hope to continue to find more. Pushups when I am tired. Loud music when I start procrastinating.
But most of all, I think about that end moment. The one where I lay on my bed in my last few seconds.
I think about that moment and how I don’t ever want to be filled with regret – just happiness. For me, that is usually enough to get me going. That moment of happiness keeps me positive. Keeps me whole.
Make those dreams happen
Evan Sanders
The Better Man Project