REALITY CHECK: Are You Being a Bum or Taking Off
I recently began interviewing people about their personal development journeys and learned some powerful stuff.
The most interesting thing I’ve learned (so far) is that high performing people all have developed muscles of success. What do I mean? I mean that although different people have different goals and achieve them in different ways, there’s a recurring set of skills these people are building as a means of achieving those goals.
The 2 muscles I’ve noticed so far are:
Self-awareness
If you don’t have a clear understanding of what you’re good at, what you enjoy doing, where you want to grow and what you want to achieve, you’ll be failing to tap into the natural motivation and dedication that lies deep under all the bullshit society has told us is important.
Focus and proactive action
We’re constantly being pulled away from our attention. There’s too much damn stimulus. Our brains weren’t built for the number of distractions present in today’s world. As a result, our attention gets sucked into Facebook, Instagram, etc. Rand Fishkin — Moz CEO hits the nail on the head:
So, what does this mean? It means that in order to make strides, it’s vital to strengthen our muscle of focus and proactive action. It means having a clear picture of what you need to do, and ensuring it gets done instead of letting your focus dissipate into the endless pit of distraction.
So REALITY CHECK!
Do you know what you’re most important goals are right now? What are they? When do you want to achieve them by?
(Stop reading it and answer it to yourself)
Do those goals exist because you know based on past experience what you’ll attain by achieving them has made you a happier better person? Or do those goals exist because you think they’ll make you happier because you never truly took the time to deeply analyze the outcome?
(Stop reading it and answer it to yourself)
What did you do this past week that helped you make progress towards your goals?
(Stop reading it and answer it to yourself)
What distractions got in the way?
(Stop reading it and answer it to yourself)
There’s no right answer, but there is a massive difference between knowing the answer and not. If you don’t have the clarity to answer all of these questions, then it wouldn’t hurt to take a step back and identify what matters, why, and what are you going to do to get there.
It’s time for a reality check…