Has anybody else written a list of New Year’s resolutions and already failed? Depressing isn’t it! Does it look a little something like:
- Eat healthier
- Get fitter
- Spend more (or less) time with the family
- Book a holiday
- Ask for a pay rise
- Get a new job
Many of us have the best intentions. We buy lots of fruit, dust off the gym kit, book a meeting with our boss and start looking for a new job. However once we are hungry/it rains/sat in front of your manager/have looked at 50 job adverts we give up.
It’s too hard, we get comfortable, we can’t do it. Wrong! We absolutely can.
Think of something that you have completed in your life that was really difficult.
- Run a 5k/10k/marathon
- Stuck to a diet
- Quit smoking
- Joined a club
- Got your child to do their homework
Anything that you have achieved would have presented an opportunity to opt out. But you didn’t. And it’s when it starts to get really hard, that you benefit the most.
I recently completed a 100KM trek across the Arctic Circle in -45 degrees, carrying a 25kg sled with no contact with the outside world. I did 7 months of training prior to flying out to Iqaluit and people always ask if there were times when I wanted to give up. And the answer is LOADS!
- On day 1 of the trek in a white out/blizzard
- When I saw the 8 man plane that we were flying in
- When 2 locals laughed at our polar bear defence/save us from a polar bear tools
- Several times during a 4.5 hour walk on a windy, rainy Saturday afternoon during training
- Sat in Tesco HO freezer in -25 putting up a tent
But I didn’t give up and I had the most amazing experience of my life. But what compared to this was recently making the decision to change my career. Both equally challenging and equally rewarding.
So if you're sat there thinking I can’t do it, I have tried and it’s too difficult - DON’T GIVE UP! Because it’s about to get REALLY good!
Put down your Subways, don’t banish your trainers to the bottom of the shoes pile, look at that 51st job advert, don’t start rambling on about your Family Christmas dramas and ask your manager for that pay rise! You won’t regret it!
So let’s tick off the resolutions on our list and remember that when it starts to get really hard - if it was easy, everyone would do it!
The principle SEAL taught is what he calls the 40% rule — which essentially means people feel maxed-out mentally and physically, and thus stop, when they are at only 40% of their actual capacity. Going past this 40% capacity is when it becomes uncomfortable. Thus, SEAL’s mantra, “If it doesn’t suck, we don’t do it.”
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