Archives for February 2011

Have you ever had the feeling that things were going too good? Not just regular good, but good to the point where it didn’t feel like you were living your life anymore? If this were a typical day in the life of you, the big fail beast would be racing down the street at a breakneck speed to trip you up before you started to get too full of yourself.

That’s what went down in my life this week.  Since last check-in, I’ve been 100% compliant with my workouts and nutrition with no struggle at all. I was so on point with everything that I was within 1lb of my goal weight 5 days ago.

But then it happened. On purpose.

I failed in a big bad way, and I loved every minute of it.

After a pretty decent workout, I decided to go on what will go down in the history books as a roaring rampage in the supermarket. Mac & cheese? Yes please. Cookies? Don’t mind if I do. Cake? Oh you’re far too kind! I still got in my regular amounts of  fruit, veggies and protein, but when all was said and done I consumed over 5,000 calories. I was bloated and groggy for the rest of the day, and I wondered how bad the damage would be the next day.

Plus 7lbs from the day before. Perfect.

I know that it seems asinine to purposely mess up a good thing; that would be like stopping to do the James Brown 5 yards short of a game winning touchdown, but let me explain. It’s easy to be upbeat and positive when life is filled to the brim with sunshine and unicorns and you’re knocking out your objectives with a 1990s Mike Tyson level of ferocity, but what happens when you make one little mistake that deviates from your master plan?

You stumble. You begin to question your abilities and your resolve to achieve what you set out to do. You may very well even pack it up and call it quits right there.

If you’ve never seen a grown man beg then prepare to be stunned and stupefied because here it comes: I beg of you NOT to do this.

As with many things in life, looking at a situation in a different way is sometimes all you need in order to overcome it. Instead of treating failure as something that marks the coming of your doom, view it as a tool that will bring you closer towards success, even more so than always staying the course.

It’s inevitable that you’re going to one day fall short of the mark that you set for yourself. You’re going to miss some workouts, you’re going to not finish your product by the deadline, and you’re going to screw up on the path to greatness – a lot. You’re not perfect and if you were life would be no fun to live anyway, so it’s best to accept this fact right now because it leads to the next, most important piece: The horror of failure isn’t in the act of falling, but staying there.

When you find yourself down there on the floor of life, ask yourself this question: Will this kill me?

If the answer is no, which it always is, then stop feeling sorry for yourself, stand back up and start moving. Don’t put it off for later, because later never comes. Do it then.

Falling shows that you’re a human with faults.

Staying down shows that you’ve allowed yourself to embody and become those faults.

Getting back up again and again shows that you’re not going to allow these moments of imperfection to define and guide you; you’re better than that and you’re gonna prove it by moving forward and succeeding.

You learn more about yourself in failure than you ever will in victory, and failing on your own terms is one of the most powerful tools that you have at your disposal. By doing so you condition your mind to become that of a winner so that when the real thing comes you don’t even have to coax yourself to get back into the game, because now it’s automatic. – you’re back on your feet before your right buttcheek even hits the floor.

You’ll have trained yourself through experience to know that the world won’t end if you falter. As long as you choose to rise and continue to move forward with a purpose, you will get there. Anyone who tells you otherwise is probably sitting on the ground, nursing their wounds as they watch you walk by.

“Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better.”
– Samuel Beckett

So, faithful readers and comrades, when have you failed and how did you handle it? Did you rise, and if so how awesome did it feel?

Weight: 183.4

Photo Credit: Mykl Roventine

For some weird reason, I look forward to the familiar person dressed up in a Statue of Liberty garb trying to entice me to get my taxes done. Even though it never works, it sooths my soul to know that with all that’s changing in the world today, I can still expect to see the familiar site of someone dressed up in a toga waving at me like I’m riding a dragon down the street.

I drive up and down this stretch of road every single day, and up until now I hadn’t noticed one critical detail about my torch wielding friend – she wasn’t human.

At some point down the line, whatever business that person worked for decided that they were so unnecessary to the company that they could be uprooted, eliminated and replaced by a machine, and I didn’t even notice that they went missing at all.

And that right there is the risk you run when you’re just good enough.

Being good enough doesn’t get you noticed.

Being good enough doesn’t move you forward in life.

Being good enough is the quickest way to ensure your downfall.

As time passes, you become expendable. Today’s good enough is tomorrow’s obsolete, and the only way to ensure that you aren’t gobbled up by the machine is to run. Run as fast as you can from good enough and towards redonkulously awesome. The closer you get towards this end of the spectrum, the less likely you are to be so easily replaced.

Nobody can replace Batman because he’s the best at what he does, but what about Daffodillia who holds the power to, you guessed it, grow daffodils on command but spends her time working at a coffee shop that she hates? Not so much – there are a ton of people who could do that.

The problems that we’re each facing in our lives can’t be solved by being good enough. Actually, being good enough will only buy you just a little more time to sweat before the axe inevitably drops. So instead of waiting, decide to become awesome. Push against being average and challenge yourself to become better than you ever thought you could be, and you will be rewarded for it.

“To be a warrior is not a simple matter of wishing to be one. It is rather an endless struggle that will go on to the very last moment of our lives. Nobody is born a warrior, in exactly the same way that nobody is born an average man. We make ourselves into one or the other.” – Carlos Castaneda

Are you going to settle for just being good enough?

As I’ve mentioned before, Sexification isn’t just a physical state of being, but a mindset and a way of living that opens you up to the best that life has to offer.

I was speaking to a client of mine yesterday about her progress (she’s totally crushing it, by the way) and she said something to me that bounced around in my head for the rest of the night: “I finally feel like this is going to happen; it’s not a matter of if.”

It’s sounds simple, yet it’s a statement that’s powerful beyond measure.

There are many people out there, myself included at times, who treat success and goal achievement as if it’s something mystical that only those who have been pre-ordained by the powers that be can obtain, but that couldn’t be further from the truth.

Success is not an option, but a choice.

Success is not an option, but a choice.

Success it not an option, but a choice.

Let this marinate for awhile, because it’s absolutely critical to whatever you want in life, whether it’s to start a business, become a better parent, rid yourself of Flubby McFlubberson or get out of a bad relationship. The longer you treat your success as just an option, the longer you’ll stay just where you are, forever just out of reach from what you want.

Once you internalize the realization that what you have or don’t have is because of the choices that you’ve made, you move from being a victim to becoming your own hero; you move from thinking something might be possible to knowing that it is. By doing this and truly believing in it, your mind hardens and solidifies around your goal and will do everything within its power to get you there – if let it.

This is how it’s gonna be. You can’t be stopped. No questions asked, no excuses, and no Plan B. What’s the point of coming up with a contingency plan if you know that Plan A is going to be a success?

If there’s anything that I’ve really connected with so far during this 8 week challenge is the fact that there is such a redemptive power that’s unleashed once you decide to make a decision and commit to it, so do it. Not now, but right now.

Make the choice.

If you got anything out of this post, please pass it along via Facebook, Twitter, e-mail, or carrier pigeon. The more people that make a choice, the better off we’ll all be.

Paste the following into the comment section below: I AM going to (insert your own goal or goals here).

On Friday I’ll choose 2 commenters who will receive a free 30 minute phone consultation about whatever they like.

Weight: 187.4

Photo Credit: Tomas Sobek

“We do not rise to the level of our expectations. We fall to the level of our training.” – Archilochus

You’re riding the fastest, safest train ever built and your ride is going smoothly. All of a sudden, you go from reading the latest Dan Brown novel to being tossed around the cabin like nobody’s business.

Arf? What happened?

Welp, unbeknownst to you, the rail that you were riding was experiencing a technical engineering gap between conception and implementation, aka someone forgot to finish constructing it.

In this situation, it didn’t matter how awesome the train that you were riding was – it could’ve been powered by baby farts and unicorn magic for all I care – because you would have run into the same problem: lack of rail = the train stops moving forward (under it’s own power, at least).

This is your limit. Regardless of where you are in life, there is always something holding you back from moving forward, and until you can identify and correct it, progress will come to a screeching halt.

I had a conversation with someone recently who had no problem sticking to a diet during the week, but once the weekend hit all bets were off and the progress that they worked so hard to make over the last several days was completely wiped out.

What was my advice to him? Assemble all the resources that he could possibly muster to make it from Friday evening to Monday morning. If he can simply come up with strategies enabling himself to power through the wicked weekend, the bottleneck that he needs to pass through if he wants to make any real progress towards his goals, then it’s smooth sailing from that point on.

This is his limit break, and it applies to everything.

One of my favorite video games of all time, Final Fantasy 7, highlights this term perfectly. After taking enough damage, at a point where defeat seems inevitable, the character is able to perform a powerful attack of desperation which turns the tide of battle in his favor.

The best part is that we too can harness the power of limit breaks in our everyday life. The first step is to identify the point or points that always seem to trip us up, then do whatever it takes to keep our feet firmly planted into the ground in order to pass those points.

Need knowledge? Acquire it.

Need motivation? Find it.

Need help? Seek it.

What are your current limits and how do you plan to break through them? Leave a comment in the comments section and let’s see how we can help each other through to the other side.

Photo Credit: indy_slug