“I’m stuck in a rut…I’m just not happy with where I am in my life.”
We can feel this way about our health, our relationships, our job – we can feel like we are stuck in a rut, good or bad, about anything in life. So, how do we get out of a bad rut? The bad news is it takes a lot of work to get out of it. The good news is, when we are in a good rut it’s also hard to get out of it.
The key is to get stuck in as many good ruts as possible. I call them the ruts of life. Look at all aspects of your life – health, family, spirituality, business, financial, etc. What kind of ruts are you stuck in – good or bad? Are you happy or are you sad, inspired or not inspired, purpose driven or not purpose driven, healthy or unhealthy, motivated or not motivated, have good relationships or bad relationships? I think anyone who tells us “its okay” or “I’m fine” is in a bad rut – they’re just in denial. They just don’t know it and/or don’t want to admit it.
In life we can’t live between the ruts, its just too hard. It’s like trying to balance on a tight rope for your entire life. Eventually you will get tired and fall to one side, so don’t be indecisive. You have to accept the fact you are going to get stuck in one of two ruts – the good one or bad one. In the book The Purpose Driven Life it say’s “Nothing shapes your life more than the commitments you choose to make. Your commitments can develop you or they can destroy you, but either way they will define you.”
Let’s make the commitment today to scrape and claw our way out of the bad ruts. Once we are out – fall into the good ruts. There will be short-term pain with getting out, but it will pass and then you will experience the long-term gain of living life in the good ruts.
Get stuck in the good ruts and make it a GREAT week!
People often ask me to share the secret to successful leadership – the one magical thing that propels people to positions of responsibility and respect.
But there is no “secret” and there is no one thing I can impart. The truth is the recipe for true leadership is a complex blend of qualities that shift in importance with time and circumstances. This is not an easy answer, but then leadership is not easy, is it?
Here, in no particular order of importance, are the 10 qualities I believe every leader must understand, cling to and put to practice.
It’s a list I reflect on often myself. I hope you will too.
- A desire to be recognized, and a commitment to achieving that recognition through unfailing honesty
- Resilience: the capacity to overcome setbacks, adversity, rejection quickly – and with grace
- An awareness that the extremes of your personality will be the drivers of your success (but may also be talked about at company parties!)
- A boundless willingness to work hard – not only to achieve your personal goals, but to inspire tenacity in those around you
- An ability to alternately employ passion and common sense to solve problems.
- The confidence to rise above fear of strong colleagues. Famed marketer Guy Kawasaki said, “A players surround themselves with A+ players – it’s the only way to get where you want to go.”
- A willingness to make unrecognized sacrifices for those you lead. It is often the smallest kindness or most private act of generosity that has the biggest impact.
- A passion to succeed that is matched only by a desire to see those who work for you succeed
- An ability to recognize that you are unfinished work that can be constantly improved upon by learning
- An abiding sense of humility that keeps you down to earth no matter how far you rise
As you think about your career – indeed, your life – ask yourself which of these qualities you might work more diligently to cultivate. Your progress toward leadership will accelerate to the extent you answer with honesty and conviction.
Being a pitcher in baseball may be the only thing in life where there is a bullpen to finish off the game for you. With everything else, in order to be successful, you need to not only be good at the start and solid in the middle, but you need to be able to finish strong.
In my job, I am always looking for ways to motivate and inspire people to improve and do better. But the most amazing thing to me is how many people can get fired up about starting something that will make them better. They are raring to jump in and participate, but once the novelty wears off, they end up petering out and vanish into thin air. Not only do they not finish the game, but they can’t even get out of the first inning.
I have discovered it is really only those who have the discipline and commitment to stick it out once the novelty has worn off – those that keep up the hard work and discipline when no one is looking, that will be truly successful. It is exactly why we see so many people hitting the gym and eating right on January 1st, when it is “the thing to do”. But then by Feb 1st 99% of people are right back to their same old bad habits. They are great starters – but horrible finishers.
I don’t care whether it is sports, family, faith, business, health, or whatever – if you really want to be successful at something you need to be accountable and disciplined in doing the activities it takes in the beginning, in the middle and in the end.
Remember there is no bullpen in life. If you want to win at anything you need to “be in the game” from start to finish.
Play ball!
As we start the 3rd week of the New Year, now is when it really starts to get hard to keep up with those resolutions. When I went to the gym over the weekend, I was shocked by the number of cars in the parking lot. I’m not sure why, I shouldn’t have been, it was the same thing last year. There must have been 10 times the number of people there compared to last month. Over the last two weeks gyms all around the world have been flooded with millions of additional people. The unfortunate thing is, it’s the same millions of people who were in the gym the first week of January last year….and the year before that…and the year before that…and the year before that…and by February 1st it will be back to the old regulars.
So, why can’t we keep it up?
Whether it is going to the gym, spending more time with our kids and/or spouse, eating healthier, whatever it is – what can we do to keep those resolutions and make them changes for a lifetime, not just a week or a month? The answer is good old discipline and accountability. If we are truly committed to having a better life, we need to tell everyone we know about our resolutions and ask them to help hold us accountable. We have to burn the boats, so to speak, and not give ourselves a way back to the old us – the one who hits the snooze bar. Because if we don’t burn the boats, so there is no going back when the going gets tough, we are simply going to revert back to all our old bad habits.
Now, when you are too tired to keep your commitments, too tired to keep inspired, too tired to keep being disciplined and accountable, play this video and ask yourself, what would Lance say to you?
Lance Armstrong
How many times have you wanted to begin a fitness regiment or a weight loss program, but you simply thought it was too hard? We see this often! For some, it just takes a little push, others it takes a long term commitment.
What I see that’s very interesting, is to begin say, a fitness program, we might challenge a client to walk one day on their own…just 20 minutes. It sounds easy when the commitment is made but the day arrives and that 20 min is just not scheduled and not easy (familiar, a “habit”), so it doesn’t happen. What evolves afterwards is really interesting. The client then goes into a guilty spin of why they didn’t do it; wasting hours of beating themselves up!
Another example is getting on a healthy nutritional program. Maybe the challenge is to go 3 days without having desserts. Well, day 2 happens and that cookie just was too tempting…then the next 2 days are spent beating themselves up again!
The energy spent on feeling bad completely outweighs the actual moment of following the commitment, yet somehow we connect more with feeling guilty than trying something new, something possibly a bit uncomfortable. Why is it we are comfortable in negative feelings? Interesting, isn’t it?!
So my thought for you today is to commit to something which in the moment might feel a bit uncomfortable because it’s different; but know that the ripple effect of this new habit won’t waste hours of guilty nonsense but instead establish a comfort zone over time!
For the last several years, I have been asking our clients this question in relation to their nutrition, health and fitnessgoals. I’ve received a huge variety of answers. What I realized, is there is no “right” answer to this; but straight across the board, each person realized there is a distinct difference. How many times have you been motivated to quit drinking coffee, or get on a walking or training program? Think about that fire that lights you up and makes you switch to green tea and gets you out of bed in the morning in order to make it to Wednesday’s boot camp.
Somewhere, somehow, after a couple days, Peet’s coffee starts calling your name and the excuses start coming in to play of why you can’t make your next workout. Something happens between the moment of motivation and the dedication (or decline) of commitment!
Take some time and think about your next goal (or maybe the same one you’ve been reigniting over and over). Think about what motivated you to start and why you haven’t stayed committed.
Then think about what goal you stayed committed to and recognize what the difference is or was.
This is a powerful realization because it can take you from staying in that state of wanting to actually doing.
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