True growth in our life actually comes only after we’re tired. A great analogy when it comes to self-improvement is when we’re at the gym. It’s easy to draw parallels if you look at exercise. The only time that our muscles get stronger or increase the capacity to endure more, happens after we are tired.
If you only exercise up to a certain point of level of comfort, then you’ll never really build your muscle to where it needs to be. You see, you have to tear down the muscle with resistance before it replenishes itself. The blood flows, then the cells rejuvenate, they rebuild themselves stronger so that the next time you can endure more weight, more resistance and you become stronger. Your body begins to take on a different shape as your muscles change.
This is great but we need to be careful to not set ourselves to fail mentally even in the gym. We measure by number of repetitions. Your goal may be to lift a certain weight for 12 reps. When you get to rep number 10, mentally you may say I only have 2 more reps and I’m done. When we reach the 12 reps we just give up when in reality our body could done more. The true development, the true success in that exercise would have been at least one more. Do you see what the parallel is here?
In life, we may reach a certain level or goal and we stop. In reality if we just pushed past that, past the time that we’re tired, that’s when the true development comes. That’s when the true greatness comes because our capacity to do more in our life is huge. We will never reach it if we always stop short, giving up when we could do more. For example, you may run a mile, then say I’m tired, time to give up but I feel good about myself because at least I did something.
Well, good for you but you could have done so much more. You know, I believe when we pass from this life to the next, we will sit down to talk with our creator. He will review our life and then we wait for judgment. Our personal purgatory is going to come when we realize what we could have done with our life, and we didn’t do it. That one chance we had to fulfill our personal greatness and we did not do it. That is regret.
Life is about challenges. Life is about progression. We will never be perfect. We’ll never hit the ultimate obviously. But actually, that’s not the goal. The goal is that we continue to make progress. We continue to get better. We continue to get stronger, more talented, and more effective in what we do by constantly moving the ball forward.
Momentum is what life is all about. Don’t be stagnant. Don’t plateau. The difference is in the work ethic and the desire. Other people may have more talent. They may have more opportunity, but they can’t outwork the person who is determined to work the hardest. The difference in our life is how we respond to the failures that will inevitably come our way.
Success happens when you stick it out, when you push past the challenges even when you’re tired. When faced with a challenge many may just give up and crawl back into their little pity party. Just crawl back in into their own average mediocrity, fall in line with the rest of the world who just sits around to grumble, moan, and complain about how terrible their life is. But those are the people who aren’t truly happy with where they are. If they are honest with themselves, they will say, no I’ll learn from this and I’ll push forward. I may not have done it correctly, but I will find the way to do it correctly, so I won’t fail the next time.
Be the person who realizes that your potential is much more than a series of failures. That the challenges you have in your life will get you to be where you want to be. We are not meant to be stagnant. Raise up your standard and seek more. Seek progress. Don’t settle!
Remember short term goals lead to long-term success. Winning is a mindset. Effort is more important than talent. Hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard. I know we’ve heard these sayings many times. They’re not new but they are still true.
Anyone can acquire an ethic of hard work. Some are gifted with talents, but skills are learned. Anyone can learn a skill. Don’t get hung up on I’m not talented or that person has more talent. That’s just your excuse for not winning. No! Learn the skill behind that talent and then work harder than the next person. You can become the person you were meant to be because you decided that you would win. Remember, success is never an accident.
