Move more –bad food + good food = Dieting success

Let’s break down this equation into its component parts:

Move More – if you burn more calories than you currently do, you will lose weight, plain and simple.

If you don’t walk around the block, take a walk around the block

If you currently walk around the block then, add intervals of sprints

If you currently walk and do intervals then, weight train

If you currently walk, do intervals and weight train then, decrease the rest periods between sets

Do you see where this is going?  Take what you currently do and add more movement / decrease rest and you will burn more calories which will cause you to lose weight.

Get off the couch and move!!!

Subtract bad food – I am always fascinated when someone is given a diet and you see what is prescribed.  Eat these carbs but not these carbs, eat these fats but not these, avoid red meat and eat lean protein.  All of these may be sensible recommendations, but have you looked at what the person is currently doing?  If someone currently drinks a 4 cans of soda per day, why not move them down to 3 cans and then slowly reduce from there?  If someone eats a bowl of ice cream every night before bed, have them do it every other night and slowly reduce from there.  Dieting occurs in stages when it is successful and if you have someone who eats like crap and you try to get them to eat like a World Class Athlete, you will fail every time.  Let’s face it, we don’t like change.  Considering that fact, implementing MASSIVE change is not going to work.  Small changes do work and they add up to a big change over time.

He didn't get that way by eating spinach!!!

Add good food – if you ask any doctor worth their salt about diet, they will tell you to eat more fruits and vegetables, we have heard this forever and guess what?  IT IS CORRECT!  Increasing the consumption of fruits and vegetables will increase the amount of vitamins and minerals you get which will help your body function better and more efficiently.  Also, fruits and vegetables contain fiber which helps jettison fat out of the body.  Unlike most processed foods, fruits and vegetables are NOT calorically dense and they are vitamin RICH so, they will fill you up without adding to your waistline.  I always love when someone with a crummy diet hears the words fruits and vegetables as if it is some horrific thing.  If I have the choice of a lollipop or a ripe peach, I will take the peach all day long.  All goodness aside, it tastes BETTER!!!

Eat good food that is natural not processed, like a peach

Don’t overcomplicate things, keep it simple!!!

Watch this video and see which excuses you have for not getting in shape:

So, what is your excuse NOW???

Anthony Robles raises his hands in victory after winning the National Championship

At the recent ESPY Awards, Anthony Robles won the Jimmy V Award for Perseverance.  Robles was born without a right leg, but that did not stop him from becoming a NCAA Division 1 Championship Wrestler.  Robles was a three-time NCAA All-American and he just completed his senior season with a perfect 36-0 record and won the 125-pound Championship at the 2011 NCAA Wrestling Tournament in March with a decisive 7-1 victory over defending champ Matt McDonough of the University of Iowa.  Below is the video of Robles’ acceptance speech with the transcript below.

“Thank You…Thank You…Thank You Very Much, it’s an honor to be here.  The reason most of us are here tonight isn’t because of what we’ve accomplished, it’s because of the sacrifices and encouragement that certain people have given us at critical times in our lives.  And you just saw who sacrificed for me, and encouraged me, and that was my Mom, Judy Robles.  When I was born, my birth Dad immediately bailed, I was born with one leg and my Mom could have walked away and just given me up for adoption, but she didn’t.   She taught me to never let what I cannot do interfere with what I can do and she didn’t protect me from pain and failure because she knew it would make me stronger.  Even when my Mom got sick at the beginning of my sophomore year in college, and my Stepdad walked out on the family and we lost our home and I wanted to quit wrestling and get a job to help pay the bills, my Mom refused to let any of us give up.  And here I am today, National Champion.

I must also thank Arizona State University Sun Devils for giving me one of the finest educations in the World and my friend Chris Freije and my High School Coach Bobby Williams who took me under their wrestling wings to push me every step of the way.  And now, as I go forward with so much more to do, this is my message:

Every soul who comes to Earth with a leg or two at birth must wrestle his opponents knowing it’s not what is, it’s what can be that measures worth.  Make it hard, just make it possible and through pain, I’ll not complain. My spirit is unconquerable.  Fearless I will face each foe, for I know I am capable.  I don’t care what’s probable, through blood, sweat and tears, I am UNSTOPPABLE.  Thank You.”

So, what do we notice here?  This is not a story of a one-legged wrestler who beat his two-legged opponents.  This is a case of a person who had multiple opportunities to quit, but he did not. 

His Mom got sick, he did NOT quit.

His Stepdad walked out, he did NOT quit.

His family lost their home, he did NOT quit.

If this was just about a guy with one leg who defied the odds and beat those with a physical advantage, it would have still been a great story.  What makes him UNSTOPPABLE is that he never quits.  What excuses are you making which are holding you back???  Let Anthony Robles be an example to us all, if we never quit and we never give up then, we are truly UNSTOPPABLE!!!

 Did you enjoy this post? Buy me a cup of coffee

- Napoleon Hill

We have all heard the following expressions, “Play until the final whistle blows”, “As long as there is time on the clock, we haven’t lost”, “Play all 27 outs”, “Play all 60 minutes”, “It’s not over until it’s over”, etc.  Most people misconstrue these statements as relating to time, they do not.  All relate to the fact that no matter how badly you are losing, you only lose once you have accepted the loss in your mind.  If you never quit, then you never lose.  Once you quit, it is over, all the talent and ability in the world is not enough to overcome that.  Quitting is a choice that you make in your MIND.  Achievement is no different.  It is in your mind that you achieve your goals before you achieve them in reality.  Everyone who has ever won any major Championship has pictured themselves winning it before it actually occurred.  That all sounds nice, but what does it have to do with you?  What does it have to do with you getting into great shape, getting more muscle, getting stronger?  EVERYTHING!!!

Last week, I was doing heavy squats and on the first set I was struggling.  It started creeping into my mind that maybe the weight was too heavy and I should take a little off or maybe I should do fewer reps.  As a survival mechanism, your body is always trying to protect you so, it is natural to think about backing off when you are about to accomplish a very heavy lift.  You have to fight through that natural instinct in order to succeed.  As I stood there resting between sets, I said to myself, “WTF are you doing, you can lift this weight, explode out of the bottom, YOU’VE GOT THIS!!!”  Then, I closed my eyes and pictured myself doing the squat successfully.  The next set with the same weight felt EASY!!!  Not only that, but 3 sets later, on my last set, I did 40 LBS heavier than I did the first set!!!  Was I stronger than I was during the first set?  Did I take some magic supplement?  NO and NO!!!  I used mental imagery or visualization and self-talk to propel my success. 

Let’s do a simple exercise on mental imagery…however you direct your mind is what you are going to think about, positive or negative and whatever you say, you will think about.  Try this:  DO NOT THINK ABOUT PINK ELEPHANTS!!!  I bet you just had a picture of a pink elephant in your mind, LOL!!!  So, our mind will think about whatever we feed it.  Hence, if you want to be successful, think of success.  If you want to be in great shape, have 6 pack abs or be a MASSIVE FREAK then, think about that image and it will drive you towards achieving that goal.  As the great Earl Nightingale said in The Strangest Secret, “We become what we think about.”  The mind always moves you toward your current dominant thought.  Research shows that self-talk and visualization works. 

Stop thinking about me!!!

Self-talk refers to statements individuals address to themselves for specific purposes, such as increasing motivation or enhancing skill execution (1).  Tod et al. (2) found that “…healthy, active individuals may enhance the display of muscular power via the use of instructional and motivational self-talk… self-talk may lead to an increase in muscular power by alterations in movement kinematics. The use of self-talk may contribute to improved performance in sports requiring power-based skills.”  Hatzigeorgiadis et al. (3) found that motivational self-talk led to improved distance in the water polo throw.  Self-talk is promoted as a way to enhance sport and exercise performance (4).  As you can see, giving yourself verbal cues, whether instructional or motivational, does correlate to success. 

Research proves that mental imagery is an effective tool as well.  Silbernagel et al. (5) found “Athletes who used imagery more often were more confident.  There was also a positive relationship between imagery use and imagery effectiveness and confidence in the weight room. Thus, it seems as though imagery is a source of confidence in the weight room, just as it is a source of confidence in sports and other domains.”  Woolfolk et al. (6) used positive and negative imagery with the task of putting a golf ball and the results were significant.  “In the positive imagery group, subjects imagined the ball going into the cup, while subjects using negative imagery visualized the ball narrowly missing the cup. Subjects in the control group putted without instructions. On each of 6 consecutive days a 10-putt trial was conducted for each subject.  Post hoc analyses showed significant differences among all groups, with positive imagery producing the most improvement, the control condition producing less, and negative imagery resulting in performance deterioration.”  Some of the most successful athletes and some of the most memorable performances have been the result of using positive mental imagery.

Arnold Schwarzenegger – 7-time Mr. Olympia

Look at Arnold “chiseling” his mountainous arms

Arnold’s entire Bodybuilding career was the result of his use of mental imagery.  He imagined moving to America and becoming a Champion Bodybuilder ever since he was a little boy.  A great example of Arnold’s use of mental imagery was with his biceps, one of his most impressive physical attributes.  He said, “I was constantly playing tricks on my mind. This is why I began to think of my biceps as mountains, instead of flesh and blood. Thinking of my biceps as mountains made my arms grow faster and bigger than if I’d seen them only as muscles.  When you think of biceps as merely muscles, you subconsciously have a limit in your mind, which for biceps is something in the area of 20″ or 21″. When you limit yourself to that measurement, it is very hard to get to that level and, needless to say, impossible to get past it. But when you think about mountains, there is no limit to biceps growth, and therefore you have a chance of going beyond normal mental barriers.”  Arnold went on to say, “Whether it’s muscle or money, you have to make it with your mind.” That is such an incredibly powerful and true statement!!!

Billy Mills – 1964 Gold Medalist 10,000 meter run

View this video to see one of the most improbable victories in Olympic history:

Billy Mills was the first American to ever win Gold in the 10,000 meter run and no American has won the event since.  The favorite in the 1964 Olympics for the 10,000 meter run was Ron Clarke of Australia who held the World Record.  Mills’ time in the preliminaries was a full minute slower than Clarke.  Mills, a believer in visualization or “imagery,” did not permit a negative thought to enter his head as he worked toward the biggest race of his life.  Mills said, “The subconscious mind cannot tell the difference between reality or imagination.”  He elaborated, “You focus for 4 years, dozens of times a day, visualizing, reliving the moment the way you want it to be and then you win.  That one fleeting moment, you know, you’re the very best in the world.”  What an incredible story, visualizing his victory day in day out for four years and when given the one opportunity to run the biggest race of his life, he achieved in reality what he had envisioned in his mind hundreds of times before.

Jack Nicklaus – won a record 18 career major championships on the PGA Tour

Jack Nicklaus winning his final major, the 1986 Masters.

Jack Nicklaus, “The Golden Bear”, is the most prolific golfer in PGA history amassing an incredible 18 major championships over the span of 24 years.  It is no surprise that one of the greatest golfers ever used the power of mental imagery to forge his success.  In his words, “I never hit a shot even in practice without having a sharp in-focus picture of it in my head. It’s like a color movie. First, I “see” the ball where I want it to finish, nice and white and sitting up high on the bright green grass. Then the scene quickly changes, and I “see” the ball going there: its path, trajectory, and shape, even its behavior on landing. Then there’s a sort of fade-out, and the next scene shows me making the kind of swing that will turn the previous images into reality only at the end of this short private Hollywood spectacular do I select a club and step up to the ball.”  What an incredible of vivid use of mental imagery!!!

Michael Jordan – 6-time NBA Champion & One of the Greatest Basketball Players Ever

Growing up, I had the privilege of seeing Michael Jordan play.  I say privilege because he was one of a few players who could single-handedly take over an entire game.  He had the ability to overcome double teams with ease and still score 50 or 60 plus points.  When asked about athletic skills versus mental skills, Michael Jordan said, “The mental part is the hardest part, and I think that’s the part that separates the good players from the great players.”  In terms of mental imagery, Jordan said, “I visualized where I wanted to be, what kind of player I wanted to become. I knew exactly where I wanted to go, and I focused on getting there.”   Yet another legend who used mental imagery!!!

As we saw above, mental imagery or visualization is a technique employed by some of the most successful athletes of all time.  While we may not have the same physical gifts that they had, any of us can employ the technique of visualization to achieve tremendous success in our physique, business and in life.  As with anything in life, visualization takes practice and what works for one person may not work for another so, find out what works for you and go with it.  You can call upon these images of success whenever you need them and the more you use mental imagery, the more confident and successful you will become.  Focus your mental images on achieving success rather than avoiding failure, only focus on positive thoughts and close your eyes and repeat a message to yourself until the image becomes very vivid and clear.  See yourself achieving your goals, getting the physique you desire and living the life that you deserve.  Do this continuously and one day, you won’t need to close your eyes anymore because those dreams will become a reality!!! 

 Did you enjoy this post? Buy me a cup of coffee

References:

1) Hardy, J. Speaking clearly: a critical review of the self-talk literature.  Psychol Sport Exerc 7: 81–97, 2006.

2) Tod, DA, Thatcher, R, McGuigan, M, and Thatcher, J. Effects of instructional and motivational self-talk on the vertical jump. J Strength Cond Res 23(1): 196–202, 2009

3) Hatzigeorgiadis, A, Theodorakis, Y, and Zourbanos, N. Self-talk in the swimming pool: the effects of self-talk on thought content and performance on water-polo tasks. J Appl Sport Psychol 16: 138–150, 2004.

4) Zinsser, N, Bunker, L, and Williams, JM. Cognitive techniques for building confidence and enhancing performance. In: Applied Sport Psychology: Personal Growth to Peak Performance. J.M. Williams, ed. Boston: McGraw-Hill, 2006. pp. 349–381

5) Silbernagel, M.S., S.E. Short, and L.C. Ross-Stewart. Athletes’ use of exercise imagery during weight training. J. Strength Cond. Res. 21(4):1077–1081. 2007

6) Robert L. Woolfolk, Mark W. Parrish and Shane M. Murphy. The effects of positive and negative imagery on motor skill performance. Cognitive Therapy and Research . Volume 9, Number 3, 1985, pgs. 335-341

9) “I don’t walk away from things that I think are unfinished.”

’8) “I just use my muscles as a conversation piece, like someone walking a cheetah down 42nd Street.”

7) “What we face may look insurmountable. But I learned something from all those years of training and competing. I learned something from all those sets and reps when I didn’t think I could lift another ounce of weight. What I learned is that we are always stronger than we know.”

6) “I knew I was a winner back in the late sixties. I knew I was destined for great things. People will say that kind of thinking is totally immodest. I agree. Modesty is not a word that applies to me in any way – I hope it never will.”

5) “It would make me sick to miss a workout … I knew I couldn’t look at myself in the mirror the next morning if I didn’t do it.”

4) “The last three or four reps is what makes the muscle grow. This area of pain divides the champion from someone else who is not a champion. That’s what most people lack, having the guts to go on and just say they’ll go through the pain no matter what happens.”

3) “For me life is continuously being hungry. The meaning of life is not simply to exist, to survive, but to move ahead, to go up, to achieve, to conquer.”

2) “Strength does not come from winning. Your struggles develop your strengths. When you go through hardships and decide not to surrender, that is strength.”

1) “The worst thing I can be is the same as everybody else. I hate that.”

Did you enjoy this post? Buy me a cup of coffee

Situation: Reminding a client that there is one set left…
Excuse: “I can’t, I’m too tired”

Situation: Giving someone a nutrition plan and they respond with…
Excuse: “I NEED carbs…can’t I have more than that?” (Note: Nobody NEEDS carbs.  Carbohydrates are the only macronutrient that we do not NEED to obtain from our diet.  There are Essential Amino Acids (Protein) and Essential Fats which must be obtained from our diet, but our body can convert Fat or Protein into fuel)).

Sorry ladies, you don't "NEED" carbs.

Situation: Not showing up to the gym to train
Excuse: “I am too busy, too tired, my spouse needs me to do something, etc.”

While those aforementioned excuses are fairly common, one of the most depressing excuses is, “I can’t because I am too old”.  Age is something that we cannot stop and its negative effects range from decreases in testosterone, muscle mass and bone density to memory loss.  Though many folks use age as an excuse, there are those out there who put people half their age to shame.  Here are 3 men who NEVER use age as an excuse:

Jack LaLanne

Jack LaLanne is a legend.  Back in the day, he got many people off of their butts and into the gym by showing the benefits of smart nutrition and exercise.  He practiced what he preached and recently passed away at the age of 96 in late January 2011.  His family said that he continued to perform his daily workout routine until the day before his death.  Jack LaLanne’s daily workout wasn’t a walk around the block; he continued to do push-ups, pull-ups, dips and other muscle-building total body exercises. 

Dr. Charles Eugster

A retired Dentist from England, Dr. Eugster was a self-professed couch potato until his 50’s.  He realized that if he wanted to live a long life that he would have to get active and that is exactly what he did.  Dr. Eugster became a World Champion rower, winning dozens of medals.  He began adding heavy weights into his training at the age of 87 (yes, you read that right), after which he noticed dramatic improvements in his rowing performance.  In 2010, at the age of 91, Dr. Eugster scored the highest number of points ever in a Strenflex competition with a winning performance which included doing 57 dips, 61 chin-ups, 50 push-ups and 48 abdominal crunches, each in 45 seconds!!!  Most people one quarter his age could not accomplish that!!!

Louie Simmons

Louie Simmons is the epitome of Unstoppable Strength.  Anyone and everyone in the iron game knows Louie and his legendary gym, Westside Barbell.  Louie’s bio from the Westside Barbell website: “One of only six lifters to total Elite in five weight classes, Louie Simmons is no stranger to the lifting community. For the last 27 years Louie Simmons has totaled Elite in various lifting organizations. He is the only lifter over 50 years of age to squat 920 and total 2100. Ranked 4th nationally in 2000 in the open division, Louie has squatted 920, benched 600 (at age 50), and deadlifted 722.”  At 62 years old, Louie is stronger than most College Football Players (yes, you read that correctly).  Louie is a personal hero of mine and his contributions to the world of strength are second to none.  He has produced “25 world and national champions, 28 800+ squatters, ten 900+ squatters, and three 1000+ squatters”, enough said.

I know what you are thinking, these guys are the exception to the rule, I am not going to benefit from Strength Training because I am starting too late, I am too old, etc.  When someone above the age of 55 who had never trained previously gave me the excuse, “I’m too old for that”, I would not push because I didn’t want them to get injured, but then I read a study which COMPLETELY changed my mindset about the role of age in strength training…the fountain of youth is made of IRON!!!

In the February 2011 Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, there was an eye-opening study conducted by Candow, et al. entitled “Short-term heavy resistance training eliminates age-related deficits in muscle mass and strength in healthy older males”.  The following is a synopsis of the study⁽¹⁾.

Objective:  To determine whether short-term heavy resistance training in healthy older men could eliminate deficits in muscle mass and strength compared with healthy younger men.  

Methodology:  Seventeen older men (60–71 yr) performed supervised resistance training for 22 weeks. Before and after resistance training, measurements were made for lean tissue mass, muscle thickness, and strength (measured by leg and bench press 1 repetition maximum) and were compared with values of younger men (18–31 yr). Before training, older men had significantly lower lean tissue mass, muscle thickness, and strength compared with younger men.

Findings:  All deficits were eliminated after 22 weeks of resistance training.

Conclusion:  Short-term, heavy resistance training in healthy older men is sufficient to overcome deficits in muscle mass and strength when compared with healthy younger men.  The practical application from this research is that healthy older men can be prescribed a whole body heavy resistance training program to substantially increase muscle mass and strength to levels similar to young, active individuals.

What did we learn?
1)      You CAN train heavy even if you are older.
2)      You CAN gain benefits from heavy strength training when you are older.  Amazingly, even in old age, you can return to levels of strength and muscle mass seen in healthy younger adults.
3)      It is NEVER too late to start strength training.

Did you enjoy this post? Buy me a cup of coffee

References:
1) Candow, DG, Chilibeck, PD, Abeysekara, S, and Zello, GA.  “Short-term heavy resistance training eliminates age-related deficits in muscle mass and strength in healthy older males”.  Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research. February 2011 Vol. 25 No. 2 pgs. 326–333

The sign of success or failure?

When I first started working right after college, I got a job on Wall Street.  The massive buildings, the hustle and bustle, I really thought that I had made it.  What I made in money was far surpassed by what I gained in knowledge of human behavior.  Within the first few weeks of working 7 days and 100 or more hours each week, my mentor grabbed me and pulled me into a conference room.  I had not slept more than 4 hours over the course of the past 10 days and I was exhausted.  Fortunately, he was here to offer me some words of wisdom and I will never forget what he told me as long as I live… “Do you want to know how to make it here?”, he said.  “Of course!”, I responded happily.  He said, “Work hard, keep your head down and keep your mouth shut and hopefully, you will make it through the downturns.”  This was the verbal equivalent of kicking me in the groin and asking me “what’s wrong?” as I roll back and forth on the ground.  While Knute Rockne and Vince Lombardi were busy rolling over in their graves at the complete and total lack of motivation those words provided, I sat there staring into my cup of coffee completely mystified.  I worked my ass off in school to try to get the toughest job I could get so I could be successful and this is what I got?  Lesson #1:  Success is a journey NOT a destination.

Rockne & Lombardi knew the secret of success

Whenever I think about what my mentor said, it is more reminiscent of how to survive being held hostage rather than advice on becoming successful.  Did Arnold ever say to anyone, “Lift weights, eat well and hopefully if you hang around long enough you will win a bodybuilding competition.”  HELL NO!!!   THIS is Arnold: “For me life is continuously being hungry. The meaning of life is not simply to exist, to survive, but to move ahead, to go up, to achieve, to conquer.”  If Arnold had been in the conference room, he would have flipped the table over after hearing what my mentor had said!!!  Arnold had a WINNER mentality, but that is not enough…he also SURROUNDED himself with the best.  Think about it, everyone that Arnold trained with finished at the top of the Mr. Olympia competition and they were all World Class Bodybuilders.  In fact, Arnold’s training partner Franco Columbu won 2 Mr. Olympia titles and finished in the top 5 overall when he and Arnold competed together.  So, the easiest way to stop being a failure and start being a winner is to SURROUND YOURSELF WITH WINNERS!!!

Arnold & Franco surrounded themselves with success!

If you want to become good at basketball, don’t play against little kids and dunk on an 8 foot rim.  Play against guys who are bigger, better and tougher and your level of play will increase.   The same goes for lifting, don’t train with people who are below you, train with those who you want to emulate.  When you want to lose weight and all of your friends are out of shape, you are going to find yourself at fast food joints and you will have to deal with getting hassled when you choose to eat a salad or pass on dessert.  Who needs that?  Yet, if you want to lose weight and you hang out with people who are in good shape and whom you want to be like, you will find yourself eating better.  No matter whether it is sports, fitness, diet, or anything else, if you surround yourself with those who are more accomplished than you, you will reap the benefits of their experience and you will catapult ahead of your peers and achieve tremendous success much faster than you would alone.  This is one of the easiest things you can do to better yourself in any area of life, yet so few people do it. 

So, this all sounds great, but where do I go from here?  Well, what is your goal and who has achieved what you want to achieve?  Once you determine the answers to those 2 questions, seek out the people who you want to be like and read everything that they write and learn as much as you possibly can from them.  The most important thing is to ask questions and LISTEN.  I read everything I can get my hands on related to success, fitness, entrepreneurship and I seek out those who know more than me and ask them questions.  The vast majority of people love talking about themselves so, it is not hard to get them to tell you about their favorite subject.  Go ahead, surround yourself with successful people, learn from them, reap the rewards and become a winner!!!  BE UNSTOPPABLE!!!

Did you enjoy this post? Buy me a cup of coffee

1) Stop and Assess the Situation

I recently read Gene Simmons’ book “Sex, Money, Kiss” and I highly recommend it.  At one point he says, “When you die, are you going to go into the ground wondering what you should have or could have done?  Or, are you going to go into the ground with a smile on your face saying, ‘I did it all’.” 

"I did it all." - Gene Simmons

I think that if the vast majority of people reading this died today, they would not say, “I did it all”, myself included, BUT are you on a path which will get you there?  The only way to get there is to be on the right path and the only way to determine that is to Stop and Assess the Situation.  Let’s face it, we wake up, go to work, answer e-mails, make phone calls, come home, eat dinner, go to sleep and repeat.  That doesn’t allow much opportunity for introspection.  It is very easy to get into a pattern and not break out of it and the next thing you know, years have gone by where you could have made changes, but you never took the time to Stop and Assess the Situation. 

Allocate 30-60 minutes per day to yourself.  Use this time to relax, but also to look within.  Ask yourself the following questions:

1) Am I happy?  If no, why not?  If yes, what makes me happy? 

Write a list of the things that make you happy and the things which bother you and see which list is longer.  How much time do you spend on the happy items versus the bothersome ones?  Continue doing the things that make you happy and try to minimize, change or remove the things that do not make you happy, life’s too short to live any other way.

2) What are my goals and dreams?  Am I pursuing them or just dreaming about them?

How often do we come up with a great idea and then never pursue it?  How many times do you see an invention or something on TV and either say, “I thought of that first” OR “Why didn’t I think of that?”  Make sure to always strive towards achieving your goals and dreams, even the small ones.  Maybe you want to build a shelf or plant a garden, go ahead and do it!  For bigger goals which take a longer time (e.g. achieving financial freedom), set up a plan to achieve those goals.  If your goal is to achieve success in a particular field, speak to successful people within that field and get their advice.  Avoid mistakes that they made and you will get there even faster!

3) Who do I hang out with most of the time?  Do they make me a better person or worse?  Are they successful?  Are they happy?

Your support network (i.e. closest friends) are your backbone.  It has been said that you are the average of the 5 people who you hang out with the most.  Think about that for a second…I drank more in college than I do today, so did my 5 closest friends.  I am insanely passionate about Health, Wellness and Fitness, so are my 5 closest friends.  I am healthy and stay in great shape, the same goes for my 5 closest friends.  Get the picture?  Try it for yourself and see!

After answering these questions, you will get an idea of where you are and where you want to be, the next step is to TAKE ACTION!

2) Take Action

“All courses of action are risky, so prudence is not in avoiding danger (it’s impossible), but calculating risk and acting decisively. Make mistakes of ambition and not mistakes of sloth. Develop the strength to do bold things, not the strength to suffer.”

 -Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince

That quote says it all.  If you don’t like your job, CHANGE IT!  If you are not happy with your body, CHANGE IT!  It is easy to complain and be negative, and while it is more difficult to stop complaining and turn a negative into a positive, you will be much happier in the long run!  You have nothing to lose and everything to gain so, TAKE ACTION! 

They key is to not just take risk, but take CALCULATED risk.  Putting every penny you have on Red at the Roulette wheel is not risky, it is idiotic.  You have no control over the outcome so, you are basically just throwing your money away.  Was Bill Gates playing the roulette wheel or taking a Calculated risk when he dropped out of Harvard to build Microsoft?  That is a great example of a Calculated risk.  If it failed, he could always go back to school AND he was young so, he had the rest of his life to make up for it.  None of his success would have materialized had he not taken action. 

Too often we try to perfectly predict what the outcome of our decisions will be.  It is part of our DNA to be risk averse.  Don’t let your instinctual risk aversion prevent you from taking action.  Carve out time every day to pursuing your goals and dreams, even if it is 10 minutes, it will add up over time.  Create an action plan, make a list of steps you need to take and then get going and follow the plan!

So, you have assessed the situation and begun to take action, but that does not mean that you are on the fast track.  There will be bumps along the way, it is inevitable.  No one who has ever achieved their goals and dreams has done so without any adversity, but everyone who is successful and living out their dreams chose to NEVER Give Up until they got what they wanted.

3) NEVER Give Up

One of the all-time best scenes in movie history came from Raging Bull where Robert DeNiro plays boxer Jake LaMotta.  After getting bludgeoned by Sugar Ray Robinson, but never getting knocked down, the referee calls the fight on account of TKO.  Robert DeNiro (playing Jake LaMotta) wobbles over to Sugar Ray Robinson, battered and bloodied, and taps him on the shoulder and says, “Hey Ray…Hey Ray…you never got me down Ray…you never got me down…You hear me?  YOU NEVER GOT ME DOWN!” 

Whenever I watch that scene, I get so JACKED UP!!!  That scene is a metaphor for life: take all the punches life throws at you, but never get knocked down.  If you have an attitude of success rather than an attitude of failure then you are UNSTOPPABLE.  A saying that I live by is, “If you never quit then, you never lose.”  It is only once you have given up that you are done and the only person who decides that is YOU!  Always having a PMA (Positive Mental Attitude) will carry you down the road to success.

If I told you that you were going to suffer the fate of a couple of well-known failures, you would probably want to avoid it like the plague.  What if I told you those failures were Winston Churchill and Michael Jordan?  That’s right!  Michael Jordan was cut from his high school varsity basketball team sophomore year and Winston Churchill repeated a grade during elementary school, failed the entrance exam to the Royal Military Academy twice AND he was defeated in his first effort to serve in Parliament.  The reason we don’t think of them as failures is because they NEVER Gave Up!!!  As a result, they overcame their failures and ended up achieving tremendous success.

Michael Jordan and Winston Churchill both had PMA (Positive Mental Attitude):

“I’ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.” – Michael Jordan

“Never give in, never give in, never, never, never, never — in nothing, great or small, large or petty — never give in except to convictions of honor and good sense.” – Winston Churchill

On March 4, 1993, Jim Valvano spoke at the ESPY awards stricken with terminal cancer and only a few months to live, yet, he gave one of the most moving speeches I have ever witnessed and it truly embodies what not giving up is all about: “I just got one last thing, I urge all of you, all of you, to enjoy your life, the precious moments you have. To spend each day with some laughter and some thought, to get you’re emotions going… to keep your dreams alive in spite of problems whatever you have. The ability to be able to work hard for your dreams to come true, to become a reality…Don’t give up, don’t ever give up. That’s what I’m going to try to do every minute that I have left. I will thank God for the day and the moment I have…”

To follow your dreams, you need to: 1) Stop and Assess the Situation (Where am I currently in terms of achieving my dreams? Where do I want to be? What do I need to do to get to where I want to be?) 2) Take Action (Do what you need to do to get where you want to be) and 3) NEVER Give Up (NEVER GIVE UP).  The formula of living the life you want and achieving your goals and dreams is not complex, it is simple.  Actually following it and sticking to it no matter what life throws at you is what makes it difficult and that’s what separates those who are happy & successful from those who are not.  What’s stopping you from living out your dreams?  What are you waiting for?  Start NOW, NEVER give up, BE UNSTOPPABLE!!!

Did you enjoy this post? Buy me a cup of coffee