Find an excuse. Every day, find an excuse to work harder. Find an excuse to be better. Be creative. You don’t always need a grand quest or a great mission, sometimes you just need a reason to last 5 more minutes, to focus just a little bit longer for today. Tomorrow is irrelevant. Find an excuse to be better today, in this moment, and you’ll live a great life.
Insecurity is something that has hurt me, but now, I’m realizing that a healthy dose of it can help me.
We often aim to cover up insecurities, which end up leading to deeper, darker feelings of unworthiness. I don’t think that’s the route. Those things you’re insecure about can lead you to take great action, to make lot’s of money or lose lots of weight or help a lot of people.
Write down what you’re most insecure about it. Identify it, it’ll take self-awareness, but it’s a great exercise. Then embrace it. Use the energy that comes from insecurity to strengthen that part of your life that was once a weakness.
I tend to do this, maybe a bit too often in some areas of life, but not nearly enough in others.
I do something before I’m ready to do it and I either thrive and survive or fail. The key is to make failure a real option, and to make that failure a painful reality if it hits. (Read this: How to Face Your Greatest Fears and Win)
It’s not something I’d recommend to everyone, but every now and then we need to swim out into the deep waters to know what we’re made of.
Just like you train a muscle you must train your spirit and your mind.
There’s a reason why the military’s special ops conduct the most arduous training sessions in the world. They realize that when the shit hits the fan, it’s training that will take over. No amount of innate toughness will serve you if your training isn’t there to guide you and keep you calm.
The same goes for life. If you want to be better, to be tougher, to be grittier, then put yourself in the situations that will require more of you, remove yourself from the zones of comfort that keep you small.
Have you ever wanted something so bad that you save up and buy it but then get it and a week goes by and you don’t really care if its yours anymore?
Our society is designed to make us want things we don’t need.
We’re judged on whether we have this or that and none of it is of any real consequence.
People aspire to own a certain car or watch. Imagine having a thing as a measurement of your success as a man?! It’s so silly, yet we, even I, walk right into the trap of placing importance on things that mean nothing to impress people that don’t really care about the things we own or don’t. (Read this: 25 Ways to Find Your Rebel Soul)
It’s a vicious cycle and one that we must each stop as soon as possible or else we relegate ourselves to meaningless lives dependent on things that are made by other men.
Vanity is king in a society without values.
I love to party. To get wasted with a coupla good pals, tell stories, make fun of each other, and laugh way too much, is a hell of a lot of fun. It has its place. But I can’t imagine living a life without discipline, without accomplishment, as something filled with true joy.
Being a carpenter or wood worker must be one of the most enjoyable jobs there is. You get to see the fruits of your labor and the joy on the client’s face when they purchase it.
Being a farmer, planting crops. Being a cowboy, raising cattle. Being a teacher, showing young minds possibilities by teaching them about history. Being a mother, raising a child to be good and honest and honorable.
This is where joy lives, breathes, and flourishes. Partying is awesome, it has its place in moderation.
Daily, what you’re doing when you wake up at the time you wake up, move into your first habit, then your first task, is training.
You’re either training to get better and to do something of value, or you’re welcoming mediocrity as your companion.
You know which side of the fence you’re one.
Take pride in how you carry yourself, but don’t fret over the clothes you wear nor what others think of them.
Work hard at your job, but because it’s better than the alternative. Just don’t do it to impress others or to buy things in order to impress people you really shouldn’t care about impressing.
As honor and courage and the values of the past fall by the wayside, vanity steps in and claims victims like a cancer.
Walk into the gym on a mission. A singular mission; to improve. It’s a form of being self-centered, but in a good way. You notice the suffering of others because you’re a problem solver, but you don’t get caught up in the gossip and the bullshit that claims so many wasted hours of so many days. (Download This: The Gauge Workout)
You’re on a mission in every area of your life, and you won’t let anything or anyone hold you back.
We live in an insanely hyper-sensitive society. We can’t joke about anything, not race, sex, orientation, genders, even relationships without being called a name and quieted by an idiotic yet growing populace.
If you get offended easily, you’re a pussy. Take a step back. Take a breath. And lighten up.
The finest skill I’ve developed in my few years on this earth is the ability to laugh at myself and everything that I am.
It is foolish to act without thought, much of the time. Sometimes, though, instincts are better than long, drawn out rationalizing of weakness.
Sometimes it’s better to be a fool than a spectator.
We very cunningly rationalize our fear. We come up with reasons not to do something rather than benefits of doing the thing that will, at the very least, test us and our mettle.
The point isn’t to not think, far from it, just don’t let your thoughts impede your actions and keep you from living a grand, audacious life.
The day you were born you started at the bottom of the mountain. The day you die you’ll be somewhere higher, the work and discipline you enact on a daily basis will determine just how high you climb.
No matter where you started in life, though, everyone starts at the bottom.
More Man Up Monday: There Is No Tomorrow
