DAY 5: If you really wanted it…
As a quick follow up to yesterdays post on goals and the like, I thought I would throw one more morsel at you. A lot of folks contact me asking for fitness, and or nutritional advice. There is this perception out there that there is some trick to being successful at being fit, running a business or eating right. I'm not sure if this is human nature, but for the most part we all want to be told what to do. We want to takes step 1-6 and arrive at our goal. If it were only so easy.
For a very long time, I read all sorts of business and or self help books that I hoped would give me the keys to success. Book after book. I made lists, I took inventories and I set goals. It took a meeting with a friend who wanted to invest in one of my businesses to make me realize the simplicity of it all. We were talking about the "potential" of FRESHJUNKIE and what the restaurant would look like on a larger scale. We were at a stopping point when he said "If you really wanted to make those changes, you would have already." It hit me in the guts. "If you really wanted it…." I had been telling myself and others that I really wanted other stores and I wanted this and I wanted that, but I hadn't done the task of doing it.
This is now a staple of how I deal with people. It is blunt and to the point and makes people question what they really want. Which is the most important step in any change. "What do you really want?", and then "How badly do you want it?" When someone says "I want to get fit." I say, "Okay, well then get up at 5:00 tomorrow and go to the gym or go run." If they hit me with a litany of excuses, I put it back on them. "YOU called me, I am telling you how to do it. If you really want it, you will figure out how to do it."
It is so simple and yet so profound.
Want to eat better. Don't buy junk food and limit your access to it.
Want to be in better shape. Get up early or stay up late and get it in every day.
Want to improve any thing. Look in the mirror, ask yourself if you are really willing to make the changes. Tomorrow take the first one.
Talk less about it. Start doing it. Jump.
