“Most people think they lack motivation when they really lack clarity.” – James Clear

Rowing harder doesn’t help if the boat is headed in the wrong direction.

When was the last time you sat quietly on where you would be in a year from today?
5 years from today?
10 years?
… 20 years?

It’s blurry, and should be. Yet this pivotal step is far too often missed, rushed, or even avoided all together. The result: we climb a ladder to a window we never fully intended to climb into.

This is where working harder meets working smarter.

In this journey, clarity is a weapon. It will bring light to situations where we need patience, and to others where we need action. Our guardrails as we steamroll down the highway, as effort and drive is our strength. We just need to continue to point ourselves in the right direction.

“The only person you are destined to become is the person you decide to be.” Ralph Waldo Emerson

Fate puts opportunity in front of us.
Destiny is the result of what we choose to do with it.

In turn, destiny is a choice. Not some predetermined thing of fairy tales and lore. We can sit and allow destiny to happen to us, or we can choose to have destiny happen for us.

Don’t wait to be chosen… instead choose.
Decisions = Destiny.

“Champions aren’t addicted to tomorrow because they are too busy focusing on today.” – Nick Saban

To a certain extent, everyone understands the logic behind staying present.
They understand the benefits of focusing on the here and now, void of concern, worry, and speculation of what’s “next”.
Yet when the heat is on, it’s also quite clear to all of us that this is an easier said than done task, where many struggle… and fall.

The root of this problem is something we can all relate to – fear.
The False Reality Appearing Real.

The incorrect belief that we need to act or perform a certain way today, or we won’t reach our goals tomorrow. This is where, in those moments where the mind wanders, we want to center ourselves on something specific:

The goal is not to be perfect tomorrow.
The goal is to be better… today.

“Discipline is choosing between what you want now, and what you want most.” — Abraham Lincoln

The desire to seek immediate gratification can be our mortal enemy. It drives us towards the comfortable choice. The safer option, or the compromise.

What we lack in those weak moments is discipline. Discipline is the willingness to stick to goals we set out to do. Emotions and conditions can tempt to sway us, where our discipline can see the temptations for what they are, and make the right decision.

This skill, as it truly is one that we can practice, has been linked many times over to being a critical component of success.

What our emotions drive us towards today, may very well be directly against what we want in the long run. So we must question them. Stacked side by side, here we need to choose. Which one do we want more? There can only be one.

“Integrity is not a noun. It’s a verb.”

Just about everyone “knows” right from wrong. And if one knows right from wrong, they could be said to “have integrity”, as they possess the requisite knowledge. Yet, we know that’s not what real integrity is…

The paradigm shift is as powerful as it is simple: every day we are given the chance to live a life of integrity. For some, this may be the sustainment and building upon yesterday. To others, it’s a new chance. A new chance to begin again, and to change the course of what “was”, to what “is”.

Integrity is an every-day-thing. It’s a lens we live our lives through. Yesterday matters, but not nearly as much as right now.

“Seek not good from without; seek it within yourselves, or you will never find it.” – Epictetus

When something goes right, we’re relatively quick to point to actions we took to get there. But when something goes wrong, it’s all too easy for us to do the opposite. To play the “blame game”, where we’re using external events as excuses.

A core tenant of Mental Toughness is responsibility. To accept that we played a role. But the purpose is not to blame ourselves or throw a pity party. The purpose is that it gives us options.

When we take responsibility and look within, we now are in control. We can now focus on the moves to make to put ourselves into a better position. It opens our eyes to the path forward. If we do the opposite however, and blame the externals, we have surrendered control. We won’t have any control, as the story we’re telling ourselves is that outside events determine my path.

Responsibility is a weapon. And it only comes from within.

“To succeed in life, you need three things: a wishbone, a backbone and a funny bone.” – Reba McEntire

As we start our day, let’s think about these three.

Wishbone – Nothing is too great, or out of reach. Faith and doubt are both self-fulling prophecies.

Backbone – The unbreakable will to give our best, regardless of the circumstances. Through the lens of the growth-mindset, every outcome is an opportunity to become better.

Funny Bone – We do life for one reason: to enjoy it. If we aren’t enjoying what we’re doing, we need to find something else. As Oscar Wilde writes, “Life is too short to take things seriously.” Let’s enjoy the ride.

“The purpose of pain is to move us in action, not to make us suffer.” – Tony Robbins

Pain gets a bad rap.
Not in our world.

Pain is purely a temporary feeling… where suffering is a state of mind.

As Tony Robbins puts it, its purpose is to move us forward. It’s leverage. An advantage, and a very powerful one at that. Few things in the world can get a human being to move faster than pain. It’s our body and mind telling us to go.

Pain is mandatory.
Suffering is optional.

“We’re so busy watching out for what’s just ahead of us that we don’t take time to enjoy where we are.” – Bill Watterson

There’s a common misunderstanding that if we allow ourselves to feel happy about something, we’ll lose our drive to improve. That in order to reach our goals, we need to hard-wire ourselves 24/7 with thoughts of how to improve and develop. Ironically enough, full focus on the future is one of the most self-destructive things we can do to ourselves.

When we celebrate our victories, we feel good. On a biological level, there is a “dopamine” release. By feeling this emotion of accomplishment… we become hungry for more. We crave that next dopamine hit, moving even more aggressively towards that next accomplishment. On the other hand, if we constantly deprive ourselves of that dopamine response… we will lose our drive. This is the definition of burnout.

Take a moment today to think about how far you’ve come since last year. And since you’ve started this amazing lifestyle called CrossFit. No leaderboard will ever tell us the full story. While we maintain our fiery state of mind to find the next best version of ourselves, let’s celebrate today.

“You make a living with what you get. You make a life with what you give.” – Winston Churchill

Think back to a time in your life when you came in clutch for someone. One where your actions made a significant impact on someone’s life. Maybe it was a time where you showed up for a friend in a time of need. But you didn’t just show up… you went above and beyond. Not because of some expected return or alterior motive, but because you believed it was the right thing to do. You genuinely cared.

Think back to that day, and how that made you feel when you saw your impact. Think back to how it felt to know you made a difference. It felt good, didn’t it. Really, damn, good.

Science has shown us that one of the most powerful emotions we can feel, via serotonin, is released in mass at these moments. But what is even more interesting, is that it’s literally contagious. Think back to the last time you saw someone else doing something generous. Maybe it was as simple as holding the door open at the store for an elderly customer. Think back to that… How did you feel, witnessing that? Did it make you feel more generous?

If generosity is contagious, it just needs to be started.
Let it be us.
Be the change we want to see in this world.