Where the Rubber Meets the Road

“Commitment is doing the thing you said you were going to do long after the mood you said it in has left you.”

I went skiing a couple weekends ago with my wife and a couple friends. One of my friends had this cool new massage gun. It’s like a jigsaw with a rubber ball on the end of it and it pummels your sore muscles into submission. It was fantastic after a long day on the mountain! But I noticed that pretty quickly after we started using it, it lost a bit of oomph. When you pressed it into your leg, it would slow down and sound like it was struggling. The force waned.

In last month’s post on point #5 I talked about execution and the rubber meeting the road.  When you actually get down to it and start doing the work, sometimes you experience that pushback, that slowing down. In thinking about our topic for this month I thought about how this can parallel our motivation and our drive to achieve our goals. We start out the year bright eyed and bushy tailed with all the best intentions. As we get into it, as we start to work, as we attack our goals, the reality of the situation sets in. Those sales aren’t going to make themselves. Those weights aren’t going to lift themselves. People don’t just beat a path to our door with their credit cards out, begging us to take their money (if this is in fact happening for you, please let me know so I can invest in your business!) There will be obstacles. This is where the proverbial rubber meets the road. Unfortunately, the data shows that most people will abandon their goals by January 19^th! What will you do? Will you succumb to the obstacles? Will you cave under pressure? Or will you stay committed? Stay the course. Do what you set out to do? Here are some tips from Will Smith on how to stay disciplined.

This year I set a few running goals and one of them is to run 2020 miles in 2020. In order to do that I’ve gotta put in a lot of daily miles and be consistent and committed to my goal. After a long day of skiing, or a long day of work, I might not feel very motivated to lace up my running shoes and go out for a run, but I do it anyway. I’m happy to say that as of today, I have run every day this year. As of the publishing of this article I’m over 168 miles for the year, on track for my goal of 2020 miles in 2020.

Take stock of where you are at this point in the year. It’s still early and there’s plenty of time to compensate for any slow start in January. Remember to stay focused and stay consistent. I’d love to hear from you about your struggles and your successes thus far!