The mind is like a rubber band: you can stretch it but it will always come back to where it feels most comfortable. We have to be present to that, because the higher you are, the bigger the fall can be. The fastest way to fall is to think you’ve made it.
What keeps me going is knowing that every day I am close to getting comfortable again. So I push myself because I don’t want to go back. I’ve come way too far to go back to the old version of myself. To avoid going backward, you have to continually stretch yourself.
5 Steps to make sure you keep growing.
1- Acknowledge what you need in order to get where you want to be.
What do you really need? You think it’s more money or more business, but if you get more money, is that what you need? You need leadership. What is holding you back is not your ability, but you are too afraid to face who you need to become. You’re afraid to face the version of you who can put in the work.
2- Focus on a mission that is bigger than you.
You will do more for others than you will for yourself. Your life will either be someone’s inspiration or excuse. Don’t get bogged down in the small details when you should be focusing on the bigger picture. Who will be impacted by your growth? If you figure out how to solve your problems, who will benefit? Your life will either be someone’s inspiration or their excuse.
3- Connection is the key to exponential growth.
Don’t be attached to how much time it will take to achieve your vision, look for quality people who will help you achieve your goals. We lack connection because we are constantly living in our heads. We lose connection when we forget who we are. You are a king. Nobody is going to take anything from you because you give freely. When you live in abundance, you can give without getting attached to getting something back.
4- Consistency will keep you from going backward.
Do the work even when you don’t feel like doing it. Growth is inevitable when you are constantly looking to improve. Don’t drop your guard just because life is not hard anymore. When things get easy, that’s the time to expand.
5- Play the long game.
Don’t dwell on the short-term losses. We are all going to have losses, but they are short-term. When you play the long game, every loss is a learning experience. Create the pull by focusing on the long-term vision. Push yourself through the hard times by remembering that they are only temporary.
Your mind is always looking to go back into survival mode. It’s easier to be comfortable and safe because your mind knows how to live there. Make growth and expansion your new comfort zone. Stretch your mind’s vision so much that you feel out of alignment if you go back to the way it used to be.
Anyone can be excited for the beginning of a new journey. It’s easy to do the work when you feel like doing it. But I hear all the time, “Raul, I’m not motivated enough. Can you help me get motivated?” Motivation is a feeling. When you feel motivated, you feel like doing the work, but what do you the almost 99% of the time that you don’t feel motivated? If you have to rely on feelings, you are vulnerable to procrastination.
The key to staying excited about the journey is to know that some days you are not going to feel like doing the work. Some days you just don’t want to meditate, track your progress, connect with other people, etc. But… you still have to. Those are the days that your commitment will be put to the test. We’re all going to have those days. Do you allow self-sabotage to stop you before you even start or are you going to break the pattern and commit to your results?
Self-sabotage is the number one reason that most people don’t accomplish their goals. We are our own worst enemy. We can blame it on the customers or our team or the government or whoever, but we are the ones who stop ourselves from seeing the opportunities.
5 strategies to stop self sabotage.
1 – Think bigger If you’re going to double down on your growth, you can’t play it safe. If you did X last year, you can’t just do a little bit more, you have to go all in.
It’s easier to set goals that you know you can achieve. Think bigger, and start playing bigger. Ask yourself what you have to do to accomplish a bigger vision. The reason we don’t like to think bigger is because we don’t want to be disappointed. I hear this over and over again, “I don’t want to get my hopes up because I don’t want to be disappointed.” But the truth is: if you don’t try, how will you know? The mind wants to say “what if you fail?” But instead, you should ask yourself, why not you? If you fail, so what? If you’re committed you will figure shit out. What if it takes you longer than you thought it would to figure it out anyway? The problem is that we are attached to having a certain outcome at a certain timeframe, and we don’t focus on the growth that happens as we pursue that big vision.
If you believe that you were made for something bigger, then you have to think bigger. If you have doubt and are uncertain, what do you have to do to think bigger? What do you need to believe in order to find the opportunities? What will it take to get you to the place of certainty that you are being guided
2- Cut off anything that is not in alignment with your vision There will be distractions in your life vying for your attention, time, and energy, but your job as a leader is to cut off anything that is not in alignment with your vision. If you cut something off, that doesn’t mean it’s bad, it means it is not useful for you. Don’t look at people or things as good or bad, look at them as serving you or not serving you. Every day you are either moving towards the vision or away from it.
When you make a decision you must have the discipline to see it through. You make a decision to think bigger, that means you have to cut off the things that cause you to think small. It may only be temporary, but if you are not willing to cut things off you will be distracted. Whether it’s food, or habits, or whatever, don’t think that you will go without something the rest of your life, just ask if it serves your vision in the next 100 days.
3- Pay the price and stop negotiating with life. There is always a price to pay and it gets more expensive as time goes by. If you allow time to go by, you get older, you get more set in your ways, and it’s harder to pay the price. Give yourself permission now to double down. Stop asking for life to be easy, ask for life to be worth it. Every time you’re asking God to make life easier, you’re cutting away at the opportunity to become better.
Don’t do the work once, don’t do the work when you feel like it, do the work consistently. When you raise your standard, the stakes get higher. What must you create in your life to raise your standard? Maybe it’s how you behave even when no one is around. Maybe it’s the way you talk to yourself. Maybe it’s how you treat other people. Own your standard. You are the one who dictates how people treat you, but you have to start with yourself. Create a standard where everyone sees you the way you see yourself.
4- Try something new in every area of your life. You may want to try to master the old things before moving on to something new. But master the things that you’re good at, but creativity is an underestimated asset. The reason people get bored is because they don’t innovate. Innovation is the by-product of creativity. Try new strategies. Don’t wait until you have to act, do it when you can.
5- Work on your emotional fitness. This will challenge you the most because it’s the core of getting to the next level. Everyone makes new year’s resolutions, emotional fitness is the foundation of either success or sabotage. The mind is always fighting with you; the battle is always between the man you think you are and the man you know you can be.
That little voice in your head is always making you afraid. You have to discover, face, own, and let go of your fears. That’s emotional fitness: not running away from what scares you, but feeling those feelings fully, and letting them go. Your leadership is a reflection of your emotional fitness.
Don’t let self-sabotage stop you from reaching your goals. Make 2022 the year you double down. What will set you apart from everyone else who tries and fails is your emotional fitness. Don’t let the sabotage stop you. Once you become aware of the sabotage, you can tap into the other voice, which is the King’s voice. The King knows that the best is yet to come. The King knows to make shit happen. The King knows to show up when you don’t feel like it.
Those days that you don’t feel like doing the work and your mind is all over the place…fuck your feelings. Focus on who you need to become to overcome your feelings. Embrace your feelings, but use them to propel yourself, not sabotage yourself. Fear, anxiety, and doubt will sabotage your growth. Who must you become to take those feelings and fuel them with intention? Fuel them with passion. Fuel them to take action, because you have to believe that everything God and the Universe is putting in front of you is exactly what you need to create the formula that will get you to the next level.
If you haven’t made the changes you want to make in your life, what makes you think that an arbitrary date in the calendar will make any difference?
And quite frankly, how do you intend to stick with your changes for 365 days? What’s your plan?
I don’t make resolutions every year. Instead, I break my year down into 100-day chunks. I set the intention for the next 100 days, and I review whether I’ve hit my goals for the previous 100. And then I see where I can do better in the future.
I call this living 100 days at a time. And anyone can do this.
When you live 100 days at a time, you will expand and grow exponentially. When you give yourself a deadline that is doable instead of procrastinating, you get shit done.
Here is what you must do to compound time instead of making new year’s resolutions:
1- Get clear on the vision What are the 3 musts you must accomplish? Don’t overcomplicate things; have three achievable goals and work on them. You may want to accomplish many things in the years to come, but don’t focus on them. Adapt, adjust and execute as you progress. Don’t have a dream, have an action plan.
This is a daily habit; track your progress daily. Consistency creates clarity. If you’re not doing this every day, whenever a challenge comes along, it will take you off course. Every day, the old version of you dies, and a new version of you is born. Become disciplined to let go of the shit that doesn’t serve you. Give yourself permission to rise from your challenges.
Your vision will continue to expand as you grow. You’re not the same man you were 100 days ago. You’re not the same person you were a year ago.
2- Focus on WHO In order to compound time, you need to know who you need to become and who do you need to attract into your life. There is what you want and what you need. Sometimes you need somebody to help you expand. The people who challenge you the most are what you may need right now to help you grow. Knowing the difference between what you want and what you need is the key to accomplishing your vision. God may give you what you need, not what you want.
3- Find leverage Once you accomplish certain things, you get comfortable, and then you drop your guard. When the odds are against you, the answer to these questions will pull you through: -Why must I find a way? It has to be a must, it can’t be a maybe. -Who will be impacted if I don’t? Who will suffer if I don’t find a way out of this situation? If you don’t know the answers and you feel stuck, ask yourself what you must do to find the answers. You need to remind yourself daily. This will be the fuel you need to overcome your fear. The HOW will reveal itself if you know the WHY and WHO.
4- Do something today The actions that you take today are going to create your reality tomorrow. The biggest lie that we tell ourselves is that we will find time tomorrow. What must you do TODAY to get closer to the ultimate vision? We say we will find time tomorrow to avoid taking action. The mind wants to make you think that in order to take action, you have to feel like doing it. Fuck your feelings. Just do the work. Do it even if you don’t feel like it. Don’t become a slave to your feelings. You are not your thoughts, feelings, or emotions; you are the awareness of your thoughts, feelings, and emotions. don’t wait for the perfect moment; just take action.
5- Own your experience. Don’t blame someone else. You are the only one responsible for your experience. Not the government, not your wife, your kids, your customers… it’s all on you. Don’t let anyone’s opinion rob you from making your vision a reality. The only one who can stop you is you.
6- Focus on impact Don’t focus on income. Income is based on impact. The bigger your vision, the bigger the impact…the bigger the impact, the bigger the struggle. If you want to make more money, you have to create a bigger impact. If you want to create a bigger impact you need to create a bigger vision. The bigger the vision, the bigger the struggle.
You have to get stronger in order to overcome those challenges. Nothing worthwhile is going to be easy. There will always be a price, and you must pay the price daily. Most people will never put in the work to realize their vision. They are afraid of failing, or of being judged. Let the fear of not trying be greater than the fear of failure.
Turn your vision into a mission. Unless you have a vision, you only have a dream. If you have a dream, you are only thinking about it, not acting on it. If you have a mission you are going to make it happen. Instead of focusing on how to make 2022 your best year ever, start right now on how you can do more in 100 days than you’ve done in the previous 265.
When you focus on who you need to bring into your life, who will be impacted if you don’t succeed, and who you need to become in order to realize your vision, you can turn that vision into a reality.
how to develop the mindset it takes to overcome adversity
Anyone can start something…What separates those who are winning in life from those who are just getting by is the commitment to FINISH.
Most people don’t finish because they can’t face adversity.
Overcoming adversity is not a matter of knowing the answers… It’s not giving up on yourself when you have the wrong answer.
Because pushing yourself means that sometimes you’ll miss the mark.
If you want to be in flow state, you have to be at the upper limit of your abilities. You can’t find your boundaries if you don’t push them, and you’ll only know what they are when you fail.
That’s what it means to face adversity.
Having a vision is good, but the vision has to be big enough to pull you through adversity.
Otherwise, it’s not big enough.
Here is how you develop the mindset it takes to overcome adversity
1- Prepare for the journey to be harder than you think it will be
Many people fail because they think it will be easy. If you prepare for the work to be twice as hard as you think, you’re one step ahead of the game. Being optimistic will get you started, but knowing that you are prepared for shit to hit the fan will help you finish.
2- Manage your fear
A lot of people run away from fear. Sit with it; get to know it; embrace it. When you embrace your fear, you become comfortable with being uncomfortable. Fear is good if it reminds you to be careful, but bad if it stops you from taking any action at all. Turn fear into fuel by knowing that the regret of not taking action will be bigger than the regret of failing.
3- Change your focus
Whatever you focus on, you will attract into your life. You can focus on the problem or you can focus on the solution and see more opportunities. A lot of times, you see what’s wrong in life, and what’s wrong in life is always available, but so is what’s right. You can always focus on making connections to help solve the problem.
4- Find your flow
You can do more in 10 minutes in flow state than in hours being stressed out. If it feels like you don’t have enough time, take a break, and get into flow. If you’re stressed, it could be because you forget to feed the king: you don’t work out, you don’t meditate, etc. Give yourself time to get into flow state. When you’re in flow, your thought patterns are literally different than when you are not, and you will be able to see solutions that you couldn’t before.
Nothing lasts forever. You just have to be strong enough to withstand the storm. Most people quit because they aren’t strong enough to withstand the storm. It’s not how you start the race that determines the outcome… it’s how you show up when adversity hits you that will determine how and when you finish.
The ability to overcome adversity is what separates those who dream about being successful from those who pay the price to be successful.
If you are looking to become the BEST leader you can be, so you can make an IMPACT, because you were CALLED to lead, then you need to come to the Next Level Leadership Summit.
Click on this link to apply right now to attend the Next Level Leadership Summit 2021 either LIVE or VIRTUALLY.
https://edgelink.click/LeadershipSummit
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