Have a plan, work the plan, love the process
Have a plan, work the plan, love the process! It’s that simple and all you have to do is be intentional about it and take action to get started immediately. In my book – Small Wins = Big Gains – I dive deep into the tools and techniques you need to help you get focused, stay disciplined, and achieve your goals. But your mindset is just as important, if not more important. It’s a simple mindset and it starts with having a plan.
Living your best life starts with dreaming big! Think about what it is you truly want. Think about what kind of life would give you the most satisfaction and joy. Use your imagination and picture the best life possible. That’s where you need to start. Start with the end in mind and understand where you are going. Set your GPS for the best life you can imagine and then get to work and start creating the path to get there.
Some people use the phrase, “Well, it’s not life or death” when referring to not staying disciplined or making a mistake. Well, I say bullshit! It is life or death because it’s your life! This is the only life you’ve got and your decisions create your life. You aren’t going to drop dead because you didn’t work out this morning but you might end up with a life full of regrets instead of a life full of great, and challenging experiences. So create a plan that you can achieve. Carve a path that you know you can stay on and start heading down that path like your life depends on it – because it does!
Once you have the path in mind write it down and make it official! Set your GPS destination with your Big Gains and then create the turn-by-turn navigation to get there. If you are a man or woman of your word then you will feel inspired to achieve what you said you were going to achieve. Go ahead and tell your loved ones your intentions to provide even more motivation to stay on track. And be intentional about everything! Write down who you want to be and how you’re going to achieve your goals. And then start taking action to be that person! It’s not that difficult. You just have to get to work and come up with an intentional plan to live your best life.
Now that you have a plan you need to work the plan. Build up that discipline muscle and stay consistent with your goals. Set goals you can achieve and once you achieve them set harder goals. Put in the work every day, every week, and every month to stay on track. Use the techniques in this book to help you stay on track and stay motivated. Trick yourself and your brain by creating barriers and making things more automatic. Just don’t quit! Be relentless! If your way didn’t work last week and you didn’t stay on track, then find a new way or find a new method to stay on track. Just don’t give up and you’ll eventually reach your goal!
Have a growth mindset and understand that it isn’t going to be easy. If it was easy, then everyone would be happy and living their best life, and that’s definitely not the case. Use every experience to help you grow closer to your goals. Every time you say no to dessert, think about how you’ve just strengthened your discipline muscle and how good it feels to be in control. Every time you screw up, think about how you can learn from the mistake and figure out a better way to get closer to your goals.
“Use every experience as a building block to grow closer to living your best life.”
A growth mindset allows you to use circumstances that usually cause frustration and anger into lessons that cause growth and learning. You have to love the process if you are going to be able to stay on track through the difficult times. Jon Gordon stated,
“Love the process, and you’ll love what the process produces!”
When you achieve your goal you’ll only feel good for a short period of time and it’s mostly a feeling of relief. So if 99% of your time is spent trying to achieve a goal, and once you get there you only get to feel good for a short time, then you better love the process. Almost all of your time is spent climbing the mountain so enjoy it! When you get to the top, you will feel good, but then you will quickly start looking for another mountain to climb.
That’s why you have to take time to be grateful for your life and the things that have been given to you. Practice gratitude and self-reflection so you can love the process. See bad circumstances as challenges and then work to overcome them. See failure as an opportunity for growth. Enjoy the small wins and take time to reward yourself. Make your plan a competition or find an accountability partner to help you stay on track. You have to be very intentional about loving the process just like you have to be intentional about creating a plan for your life.
Carve out time in your week or every day to reflect on where you want to go and how you are doing in trying to get there. Journal, read the Bible, go for gratitude walks, read your goals, track your goals, pray, read personal growth books, watch positive videos, or do anything that helps you reflect and grow. It’s human nature to see the negative and fear in a given situation so you have to be intentional and train your brain to find the positive. It takes practice. Be intentional and practice finding growth and positivity in your perceived failures. If you want to achieve your goals, it’s a necessary practice.
In my opinion, you have to attack the day before it attacks you! You want to be in control of your life, or at least have as much control as you can. You only have one life to live and God has blessed you with an incredible life. So live life on your terms and create the life you want to live by using the Small Wins = Big Gains system. Whether you use this system or not take control of your life and be intentional about living your best life. Write down what you want, work your ass off to go get it, and take some personal time to enjoy the process. Have a plan, work the plan, love the process!