Sometimes, there are moments in your life where you take a very big pause and say, “This path no longer serves me. I am done with it. Now I’m going to look at how I got here, where I am now, and where I am now headed.”

It’s the big pause. 

Every story has a moment where the decision is made to head in a completely different direction than before.

The past sheds its weight off of you and you step onto new ground a transformed individual. It doesn’t happen in the sense that you have changed completely in that moment, but rather have decided that you will plant different intentions in every moment that comes your way.

But you have to have that pause.

Because if you don’t pause, you’re never going to know what you need to do going forward.

I think a lot of dreams and goals fail not because of being able to formulate them, but the nitty gritty details…the grunt work…the battle plans of what it’s really going to take to make that a reality. The Big Dream is wonderful, but it’s never going to get accomplished without a ton of reflection of why it hasn’t happened in the first place and everything it’s going to take to get there.

I’ve been sorting myself out in that way.

I’ve brought myself back down to ground level and really started to understand what efforts I have to put in every single day, no matter what, to start chipping away at this next big mountain to climb.

Of course the dream is wonderful to focus on…but at some point you have to come back to what’s right here and right now. You have to fully commit to the present picture in order to create the end result.

I haven’t been doing that to be honest.

I’ve been 70% doing that.

I’ve been putting in almost all the way types of effort.

But that really doesn’t cut it. It’s been creating turmoil inside of me for quite some time and that doesn’t do me any good. It doesn’t help me to be getting in my own way. I have been. I’ve been getting in my own way on so many different levels.

I understand that life is about developing, growing, shifting and changing and becoming the person who you were meant to be. However, I do think that there are some moments where you need to drastically raise your standard and start marching forward.

I’ve been out of practice in many ways.

I’ve been focusing on too many things at once instead of giving my full attention to a couple of things that will really change a lot for me.

I guess this is just a lesson in the difficulties of constantly leveling up your life. You are faced with new challenges and situations that force you to get even better than you were before. I’ve realized that if I’m going to take the next step with my life that I need to bring even more discipline and focus to the table.

What I was doing is not going to cut it anymore.

I have to evolve.

I have to bring in new ideas.

I have to constantly improve upon the process.

This is going to take everything I’ve got to get up this mountain. But I love the climb. I know I can do this. There’s no doubt in my heart and my mind that I can.

I just need to chip away…every day…and finally I will get there.

Focus. Commitment. Every day, decide.

I can.

Evan Sanders
The Better Man Project