Transcript: I’m sitting in the parking lot of the gym that I go to. And while I’m recording this, it’s just after 5:30 on a Friday, late afternoon. I just left the office that I work at through the day and as I was leaving, the thought did cross my mind: “Ah, let’s just skip the gym. You’ve had a really productive, laser-focused day. So why don’t we just go home and go straight to the barbecue?”
But I decided, “No, you know what? Do the work now and then rest of the night you’ll feel really great that you got that work done?” And it’s funny how some days you’re able to listen to that voice and follow the commands that you’re giving yourself more than some other days.
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So for instance, yesterday I had a day where I knew exactly what I wanted to do. I had it written out. I had a plan. I stuck to part of it but the rest of it kind of got away on me and as I was going through the afternoon I got thinking to myself: “Why are you not doing what you had set out for yourself to do? Why are you letting your focus wander? Why are you even stressing over things that don’t need to be stressed over? You’re creating the stress by stressing over them. If you’d just do them, the stress goes away!”
That’s always been true and I know that, intellectually. Some days I still allow myself to get tripped up so I had that in my mind this morning and that I’m not going to let that happen today. So I came in with a renewed focus and really felt like I was effective and got a lot of things done. A lot of productivity. And crossed off the things that I wanted to get done with the day but it took a lot of focus and it got me thinking, “Well, how come I can do that today but I sort of failed at it yesterday?”
The great ones are able to push through it even when they don’t have their best.
I think it’s kind of like watching sports or like sports in general. But if you watch sports and you have a favorite team that you follow, do you ever wonder why some nights the team is out there and they just look like they don’t have their heads screwed on? Especially if it’s one of the really good teams in the league in the sport that you follow where maybe they’re playing a weaker opponent and you’re looking at it and you’re thinking, “Well, this is just gonna be a blow out.” And you’re watching them and you’re thinking, “What in the world are they doing? This should be easy!”
We forget that those are human beings too. And sometimes you just don’t have it.
Now, the ones that are great at that are able to push through it and even when they don’t have their best, they’re able to dig down, continue with that laser-focus, and do enough of what needs to be done to still come out on top in the aggregate. And you’re always going lose sometimes no matter how good you are.
As Bob Proctor says, ‘Discipline is the ability to give yourself a demand or a direction and then follow it.’
But I think that’s what really differentiates the great from the good and the good from the average is being able to focus on those priorities. As Bob Proctor says, “Discipline is the ability to give yourself a demand or a direction and then follow it.”
I’m great at giving myself directions, I’m so-so at following them, at least in a consistent basis.
So I’m like that sports team that you know can blow out an opponent two or three times in a row and then just absolutely lay out a stinker in the next game. And that’s something that, personally, I’m aware of now and I’m working on.
So I’m going to go and I know I’ll feel better tomorrow if I go into that gym right now and I get a bit of a sweat going and work out some of the tension and stress from this day and then come at tomorrow renewed and hopefully focused. And hopefully, I won’t get blown out of the joint.
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