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It’s good to grow up.
As you mature, you have to leave behind your youthful phases- with some exceptions. You don’t want to get stale & dull, but many lingering ‘young You’ tendencies have to fade away - especially the ones holding you back.
I was chatting with a long-time friend recently about how we are committing to long-term consistency with our efforts.
We both agreed to be finished with our youthful phase of having new ideas we’re pursuing every time we talk.
Instead, we want to be consistently talking about the exact same things a year from now, albeit with more excitement, depth, and nuance than before.
To do this, it really comes down to both an inner-commitment and external accountability. The key part of our friendship is that we’re willing to call one another out. “Hey, what happened to that thing you said you were doing last time? Are you not doing that anymore? Did you quit? Distracted again, yeah?”
Every detail counts.
I had a youth minister growing up who dropped a line of advice that’s been installed in my brain ever since: “Garbage in, garbage out”.
He was referring to my and my buddy’s taste for gangster rap on our church trips (just so you know, it’s still in the queue). While his point was that we were too young to be listening to that type of language, the insight in his message stuck: Inputs & outputs.
It applies to everything in life:
Eat garbage, get a garbage body.
Spend your money on garbage, get a garbage bank account.
Consume garbage content, get a garbage mind.
Thank Heavens the opposite is true too.
Gold in, gold out.
It’s the relationship between the in’s & out’s - that’s the rule. What you choose to apply it to is up to you.
And since you’re reading this, I know you’re also after those golden inputs and grand outputs.
It would be crazy to not change something that you could change that would make your life better, right??
I’m learning it comes down to taking charge of your realm of influence.
There are behaviors, choices, and commitments you’re making each and every day that require your vigilant eye if you hope to improve. And it’s harder to stay mindful of all that’s within your control because it turns out that it’s more than you initially think. The more awareness you bring in, the more you’ll notice.
The solution? Micro-management of Self.
You have to stay onto yourself.
Never let yourself get away with anything. Never lie to yourself. Never bend the truth to yourself.
You can’t let shit slide.
It always comes back to bite you.
The trickiest of tricks are the ones you play on yourself.
Stop the deception and the sky’s the limit.
"Anxiety is thought without control. Flow is control without thought." - James Clear
I’ve been working to understand the relationship between my diet and my weight.
At first, it started super vague with “I want to be healthier and more fit."
That didn’t get me very far.
So I started weighing myself daily and writing down every single thing I eat throughout the day. Initially, I wasn’t disciplined enough to maintain this every day, but now I’m there and boy oh boy the clarity I’m gaining around this is quite a delight. The only behavior that throws me off from my health goals and has me backtracking is when I skip the discipline on the weekends.
It’s like some uninvited cloud swoops down and mutes my awareness, letting me veer without much of a second thought. It’s only when I can stop again to think about it, write it down, and monitor, that I realize the behavior.
This is the only way I’m able to hold myself accountable and demystify the input-output formula.
What was once abstract becomes data. Behavioral data on my own life that I can take action on & course correct.
Not sure who said it first, but it’s been hitting harder than ever:
“Your life is perfectly designed for the results you’re getting.”
