Committing to your Practices

This is an unlimited race. This is a race till infinity. You are going to race until the end of your life

Self-Sabotage

So when we think about this, like none of us want to sabotage nobody like, and I mean, I am going to say this, nobody wants to sabotage your life on the outside. If we look out into the world, if we look at some entrepreneurs, we look at some people, we look at addictions, we look at choices. We could believe it to be true, that people want to sabotage. But the truth is, is that they don’t, they want to feel something or eliminate a feeling of something. And most of the time self sabotage comes from unexpressed or unfelt emotions. And when I mean that because you know, we’re all grown up in our life. We have parents, we have life, we have church, we have school, we have socioeconomics. We have all these different things that influence the way in which we see the world.

We form our paradigm and our paradigm is our belief system of the world. And these are the things that run with us and that stay with us for our life. And then for the rest of our life, we spend all of our time and energy learning that story and learning what our triggers are learning what’s there and then working on it and solving it from the inside out. So that we can have what we want.

And culturally there’s a whole lot of like, not really supportive, like winning all the time or growing or happiness. And it’s like this negative shit cloud. And so a lot of us want to grow and then we’re surrounded by negative energy or people that perpetuate the cycle. And so there’s this whole big mix here.  And so at the end of the day, like, I believe you. And everybody in my life that I know, and every person I ever meet wants something great. They want success. They want happiness. They want joy. They want whatever it is that they want. And it’s easy to look on the outside and be like, Oh, they’re sabotaging it. Oh, they quit. Or, Oh, they went back to that. But the truth is, is that that’s the best they can do at that moment. And that’s okay. That’s a part of their journey. But at that moment, there are ways that we can support empathetically, compassionately. And there are also ways in which they can put containers on their life or certain things into practice that will allow them to see that and to choose that distinction and to do things differently.

Bad Practices

Bad habits in life, distractions, lack of focus, which then carries over into business, missed opportunities, focused on the wrong things, diminishing returns, and all of these different areas that don’t support us. The nature of down under, down, up, up-down, and I kind of became addicted to the cycle. And the reason was is because the cycle gave me something to focus on. And now I think I’ve had this breakthrough and growth may be in the last year and now we’re not at up but we’re climbing up higher than we’ve ever climbed. And there’s no climbing down on this one. Things are different things, very different. Things are predictable. Things are easy, things are simple, things are clear and, there are no emotions involved in it. And that’s a good thing because I’m not making emotionally rash decisions or being reactive to what’s happening because I’ve put some tools in practice or tools in place to carry a foundation of practices that I do daily. And weekly and monthly and yearly that guarantees my success. And don’t allow the train to come off the tracks and don’t allow for the car to swerve into a different lane and they keep it on the path and that path is the path to success.

Rome wasn’t built overnight. We get frustrated that the result didn’t come immediately or that I poured my heart and soul into it and it didn’t work. And then the results weren’t there. And I realized that because of my lack of containers and the right system and support around me is I was reacting to a temporary feeling. Instead of the fact that it was a milestone towards building my Rome and I was giving it too much weight and too much effort and too much energy. And then I was creating more of the same and I quite frankly, couldn’t do it anymore.

And. I was creating containers of the wrong reasons or for the wrong things that had me walking around afraid and sad and scared and miserable and thinking that I had to work and I couldn’t have free time. And I had to constantly be doing something. Because my measuring stick was broken. And so for me, what I focus on every day now is daily progress. And knowing that there is no finish line. Like this is not a race with an end. This is an unlimited race. This is a race till infinity.

The race is Infinite

You are going to race until the end of your life. And I’m going to race mine to the end of my life. And we’re going to hit milestones. We’re going to maybe set our best mile record where we’re maybe gonna get stronger, maybe we’re to, you know, find a new path, but no matter what, we’re always going to keep running or walking or riding or whatever it is, flying, whatever your modality is for your life and the practice in which you’re going or the direction in which you’re going.

And it’s important to remember that’s all it is. It’s a game every day and it’s a game that has to be played. And in any game, there’s no way to play a perfect game over and over and over. It’s impossible. You can’t play a perfect game of jazz chess. 100 times in a row. You can’t play a perfect game of football a hundred times in a row. You can’t play or run a perfect race a hundred times in a row.

Cause first, you know, perfection is all in the eyes of our perception. Like how we measure ourselves. But then also is that we, as human beings, are learning creatures and we learn every single day. And part of learning is having things that don’t work, having things that aren’t ideal, having things that, you know, fail quite frankly, are smacked on the face or get us punched in the gut. You know, metaphorically is what it feels. And it’s in those opportunities and how we look at those opportunities that we find a path forward.

We look at it, what worked, what didn’t work, what can I do differently? And the moment we look at what didn’t work and what can I do differently. We put it into practice. We’re back to running the perfect game because the perfect game is awareness. The perfect game is awareness and then an intentional choice to continually make ourselves better.

Practices to Success

Set yourself up for success

So the first one is you need to set yourself up for success. And what do I mean by set yourself up for success, you have to optimize your environment to support your goals. You have to have a clean workspace. You have to strategically place affirmations in your day. You have to schedule break time on your calendar. You have to do a lot of different things that keep you in a moment and environment. You have to optimize your entire environment to support your goals.

So the level of what you take is up to you, but you have to design your space intentionally. Accidental designs do not work. You have to design it intentionally for a reason, knowing where you want to go. So you can get there. Creating containers or practices that support you is setting yourself up for success.

Reduce uncertainty

Step number two is setting yourself up for success is reducing uncertainty. So this is where you start to preplan. You have to know what you’re going to wear. You have to have your go to breakfast or lunch delivered each day. Don’t oversell, overwhelm yourself with decisions.You should do a lot of the thinking the night before. And this is one of the ways that you prep your day.Like you have to reduce uncertainty. Any ambiguity or uncertainty will cause anxiety and a lack of focus.

Create routines

The next step of setting yourself up for success, you have to create routines. You have to create routines because you need consistency for that momentum. What you have to do is you have to set non-negotiables. Non-negotiables it’s not if I feel like it, or if the weather’s nice or if the kids do or don’t do this, it’s a non negotiable.

You have to set up a routine that’s a non negotiable. And that means it’s not negotiable. Just like it’s a non negotiable. You have to eat every day. Well, technically you could fast, but you have to eat to survive. Technically, it’s not negotiable that you have to go to the bathroom. You can try to hold it all day, but you’re going to get a UTI and you’re not going to like how your bladder feels and you’re going to end up hurt. And it doesn’t work, right?There’s things that are non negotiables while in your life your routines for your success are non negotiables and you have to see them that way and you have to see them that way. So that’s about, about setting yourself up to succeed is by having non-negotiables.

creating an accountability circle

I mean an accountability circle is you want to have a group of three to five trustworthy friends who hold you to your highest power and won’t put up with your bullshit excuses.Have a group of three to five trustworthy friends who holds you to a higher power support. You keep them close, create a predictable routine to check in for accountability. They love you, and they support you, but they give you the truth. 

So make sure you are focusing on the relationships that are going to create the results that you want that are going to push you in the direction that you want to go. And that are going to support you in getting there. And even when, if you lose the path and you get tired and you want to quit, they never let you stop walking. They may be just put your arms around their shoulders and help you step a little longer, or you’re too tired to open your eyes. And so they walk in front of you, guiding you.Those are the people that you want in your life. And so you want to keep them close and create a predictable routine to check in for accountability.

Put yourself out there

You have to put yourself out there. And so here’s what I mean by this. If you have a goal and if you have a vision and the only person who knows about it is you, you don’t have a chance to succeed. So when you get clear on my vision, your goal, whether it’s, I want to lose 10 pounds, or I want to build an email list of a thousand people, I want to launch a new product. The moment that you have that clarity, you need to go post it on social media, go tell your family and friends, let the world know what you’re up to be loud and proud about it. And now you can’t close that door and run away. And here’s the thing. A lot of us won’t post about it cause we want it to be perfect. And we want to show what it looks like. It never happens. Post it. And get going and get to work. You have to put it out there. You have to speak it into the world for it to be true. You have to own it tenaciously because nobody’s going to own it for you. And the moment you take it out of your head and you put it into the world, it gets real and you go into overdrive and you have to honor that and you have to honor yourself, That’s the definition of freedom is standing in your power, standing in your truth and owning it.

Elon Musk said this, ” basically he likes to accomplish or convince himself and work towards accomplishing a 10 year vision in six months”. And. The worst that happens is that he’s further along than ever, and doesn’t make it, but that’s better than believing that it’s going to take 10 years to get there and that you have to have that aggressive.You have to have that clarity. You have to have that drive. I’m going to push and I’m going to learn fast. I’m going to iterate fast and I might make it. I might not, but I can guarantee you that I am further along than anyone else in the world. Who’s working on it on a 10 year timeline and what I accomplished for six months. And there’s no way to lose that game. Let the world hold you accountable because that’s going to be your path to get there.

Get help from Experts

Prime example, Steve jobs didn’t build iPhones and Richard Branson doesn’t code websites as far as I know. But they have the vision and they find the people who could do those things and support them, getting there. So find experts that you can enroll in on your project. Don’t think you need to do everything yourself.

And I fell into this trap for eight years of like, Oh, I have to do it myself. I have to learn it. I have to do it. I can’t afford it. They can’t do it. The truth is it slows down progress. There’s a reason that people are experts and there’s a reason that people are generalists and you need to find the people that have the ability to get you there and figure out how to enroll them and bring them in on your team. Bring them in in your life, bring them in on your vision. You can enroll people in your personal life. enroll others into yout vision, which allows me to accomplish all of those things, reduce stress and uncertainty, and then focus on what’s going to move the needle in my life.

And so you need to think about the who, not the, how. When you have the why and the who, the, how figures itself out. The, how is never the path because the, how is transactional. It’s like a checklist. It’s a strategy, but that also completes itself. Then you need another how and another how cause it’s a little too shallow. It needs to be deeper than the vision. So find the who, so think the who, not the, how. You want strategists specialists and implementers find the people create authentic connections, invest in that relationship and enroll them in on your vision. The right people will find ways to contribute or support. I guarantee it. So think through the lens of thinking who and not how.

Schedule regular check-ins.

Schedule weekly, check in meetings and monthly reflections with everybody in your life. That matters the who’s, the accountability circles with yourself. Reflection time, thinking time. You need to schedule weekly check in meetings and monthly reflections. Ask yourself, am I focusing on the true needle movers? Am I driving this project forward? Is this a distraction? Is it aligned with my longterm goals? Could I be doing it differently? Could I enroll somebody else in on this project? Am I over complicating it, etcetera.

Here’s the guaranteed about life and business. Is that what got you here? Isn’t going to get you there. It’s going to change every day. And I know that there were times in my career, in my journey where I was like, Oh, I just want this to be predictable. I just want this to be pretty. I just want it to be the same. I just want to be the same, but the truth is is I really don’t. I really don’t, that’s just stagnation.  I sit here and I’m like, I want to build the biggest business in the world and I want to help a billion people. I want to help a million entrepreneurs, better their life and business and have financial freedom through their jobs and business and what they create, loving their customers, doing all those things.Well, if all I do is sit here every day and just record a podcast and don’t disseminate it or change the structure of it, or do a live video every day. Don’t try to change anything different or just do a post every day or do the same things every day. I’m never going to get there. Iterations and reinvention are the path to growth and success.

We’re entrepreneurs being an entrepreneur means that we committed to uncertainty. We love uncertainty and we love solving it. It gives us something to focus on and a challenge to solve. And when you can fall in love with the fact that it’s going to be different every day, foundationally, you’re going to have principles that remain everyday, like your daily practice, this entire podcast episode, that’s going to remain the same. But then what happens inside of that is where we make adjustments. It’s just where we make adjustments. Like you might be going outside in the snow and bundle up cause it’s 35 degrees in stone. Like I’m going to bundle up and bundle up. Cause I’m going to be cold and you might get out there. I’m like, Oh, it’s sunny, I’m sweating. Well, you’re not going to wear your jacket and sweat. You’re just going to take your jacket off and adjust so that you’re comfortable. That’s how it gets to be.

Celebrate your Wins

And then my favorite one and probably the most underutilized. Probably the most neglected is step number six, celebrate your wins publicly. Do it feel good about yourself and celebrate all wins big and small.I don’t know why, but I just see this culture where people are afraid to celebrate their victories. People are afraid to post their victories. They’re afraid other people are gonna bring them down. I don’t give a shit. I  really don’t. It’s not for them. It’s for you, but celebrate them own it. Own it post it. You’ve worked to get there and every single win is progress and momentum.

Every single win you’ve earned it and it doesn’t matter how big or how small it is. It’s relative. You’ve earned it. You need to celebrate it, which stamps it in. Go celebrate it. Proudly loving all that you’ve done to get there, no matter how big or small, because that’s going to help you. Share it with pride. Be loud and proud and celebrate all wins big or small