Be willing to do it

Many people want more happiness and success in their life. They want to achieve. They want the rewards. They want to have the confidence that comes with obtaining their goals and dreams.

When I was younger, I craved success. I said that I would do anything to have more success and more money.

If you asked me at the time, I would say that nobody wanted it more than me. But this wasn’t true. I didn’t know it at the time. I thought I was being honest.

As I grew older, I started to see the boundaries in what I said that I wanted. I wanted success… as long as I didn’t have to sacrifice too much. I wanted happiness… as long as I didn’t have to give up what I enjoyed doing.

But those are powerful statements. When you have stipulations hidden within that desire, it removes the drive. It changes from becoming what I can do to improve and makes it about how unfair that I am not handed what I desire.

If you really want something as bad as you think, then you will be doing more to obtain it. You either don’t want it as bad as you think you do, or you have too many excuses.

My favorite pizza shop has shirts for employees with humorous sayings on the back. One says, “I want abs, but I want pizza more.”

That holds so much truth, in addition to being funny. Everyone wants to be in shape. Everyone would choose abs over a beer belly. But the choices that need to be made to reach that goal would mean changing things they are not willing to change.

I would state I want abs more than anything, then I would go out and eat pizza. It turns out, I wanted pizza more. But I didn’t see it that way.

If you want something, you must be willing to do those unpleasant things to get it. If you aren’t willing to, you aren’t seeing the system. The system is in place and has rules and structure. Figure out the system and you unlock how to get what you want.

For abs, you will need to change how you exercise and what you eat. Keeping what you enjoy and just “wanting” it more, doesn’t matter. What matters is what you do.

To improve in life, be willing to do it. Be willing to see the full system. Then you can decide if you really want abs. Because you might realize abs aren’t that important.

This will help you to stop fooling yourself. Instead of believing yourself when you say you would do anything to have abs, realize the truth. The truth is that you aren’t willing to do what is necessary to have abs. Instead, you hope that it can be given to you without any effort on your part.

Since my naïve younger days, I have come to realize this. Now, I don’t get caught up in what I think I want. I focus on the actual systems. What am I doing. If I want a different outcome, I explore the system.

The system will show you what is required for that reward. It will reveal the rules and structures in place. You can learn how to succeed within that system.

Once you see the system, it is up to you to take the necessary steps. You can’t complain that the system is unfair. You can’t say you just have bad genes or bad luck. Instead, you will see it for what it is.

As I learned this, I changed my goals. I realized that extreme goals meant extreme sacrifice. I wasn’t willing to sacrifice certain things. I wasn’t going to sacrifice time with my family to make more money. I wasn’t going to sacrifice eating pizza once in a while to have abs.

Instead, I found the subtle in-between goals. It became less about the abs and more about being healthy. Having a healthy BMI is much easier than striving for abs and you can still eat pizza. I learned the stupidity in my earlier ambitions and adjusted.

Whatever you want in life is within reach. But it requires a change in perspective. It requires a systematic approach. It requires knowing the rules and structures. But most of all, it requires being willing to do it.