This is a short post. It will take you less than three minutes to read. But if you can grasp the one simple idea I present, it will change the way you view your entire life.
To begin I want to give you a simple premise:
Most people are too concerned about what they are doing and not concerned enough by what they are becoming by doing it.
You may want to read that again.
And then let me give you an example. Let’s say you decide you are going to workout tomorrow morning at five a.m.. You set out your workout clothes and set your alarm to wake you an hour earlier than you normally get up. The next morning that alarm goes off and jerks you out of a deep sleep. You are exhausted. At that moment your inner monologue has a little discussion with itself.
The first side tells you that you need to get up and go to the gym. It reminds you of your commitment to your goal and your resolution to workout more. It even brings backup. Guilt. This side of your mind tells you that if you don’t workout you will feel bad all day.
Then the second side speaks up.
This side reminds you how tired you are, as if you needed to be reminded of that. It tells you that it’s just one workout and you can make it up later. This side of your mind tries to shift your priorities from your long-term goal to how you feel at the moment. It even offers you another time in the afternoon to workout, when, it promises, you will feel less tired and have a better workout.
Now you have a choice to make. Which side do you listen to?
The first side has very little to offer you other than some vague goal of who you want to be in the future. The second side, on the other hand, has offered you the best of both worlds; sleep now and a possible workout later. And it’s only one workout anyway.
Or is it?
Let’s take a closer look, remembering what I said earlier: Most people are too concerned about what they are doing and not concerned enough by what they are becoming by doing it. On one hand the fact that you chose to sleep in and not workout really isn’t that big of a deal. It really is just one workout, and the truth is no one really accomplishes that much in one workout. The results any person will get from one workout are negligible. However, the important thing is not the workout itself. The important thing is who you become by getting up when you don’t feel like it.
It isn’t what you are doing that counts the most, but who you are becoming by doing it.
The type of person who can get up in the morning when they don’t want to do so to accomplish a task they don’t want to do is the type of person who can accomplish other things as well.
This truth is equally true for many other areas of life. Discipline can be built. Self-discipline can be learned. US Navy Admiral William H. McRaven is famous for saying, “If you want to change the world, start off by making your bed.”
So you fill in the blank: The type of person who can _______ when they don’t feel like it, is the same type of person who can also ________.
The key is this: Focus less on what you are doing and more on what you are becoming by doing it.
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Nick Reese wakes from a three-year coma to find the world he once knew is gone. An ancient virus has infected two-thirds of the world’s population, turning humans into either incredibly intelligent super-humans or large and indestructible animalistic creatures. For the survivors, there is no government, no antidote, and no safety. With the help of a beautiful hematologist named Faith and a man they call the Commander, Nick must survive long enough to discover the origin of the virus and learn how his blood could hold the key to a cure. But he has to do it while being hunted by the infected. And failure means the extinction of the human race.
