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What We Can Get Away With Vs. What is BEST

Always reach high for yourself!
The next time you watch TV, I want you to pay attention to the commercials a bit.  You'll be watching for subtext here.  Try to figure out how many of those commercials are trying to tell you that you can "get away with" something?

For instance:  low-fat/low-carb snack ads are notorious for this.  "You can have all the flavor and none of the calories."  It's an amazing call for trying to see what you can get away with, with no consequences.

Well, here's the problem:  there are always consequences.  And this isn't specifically a diet, health, or nutrition phenomenon at all - this is an issue with everything.

No matter what we do in life, we are always making a choice.  And that choice is:  are we doing something in an attempt to keep going the way we are, and not make positive changes?  Or are we doing something because it absolutely is a positive change and will make us better?

Too often we get into the mindset of trying to make changes without changing our the flow of our lives.  It seems like a win-win situation, right?  We don't have to change at all, and things will get better.  We don't have to give up the flavors we want and we'll still lose weight.  We don't have to exercise differently and we'll still get the body we want.  We don't have put forth any more effort and we'll still make more money.

Nothing works that way.  One of my favorite quotes I've seen of late is that "in order to see change, we have to be change."  We have to be willing to modify the way we think, act, and live our lives in order to create real change.

It comes down to having the self-esteem to WANT that big change for ourselves.  

Why does self-esteem come into the mix?  Because the person who looks for the easy way out, or the absolute easiest way to make a change without upsetting their own lives, is accepting mediocrity.  And mediocrity does not create change.  Mediocrity is clinging to the status quo, when the status quo is what got us to where we are in the first place.

Thinking this way is a fear response to something new.  The fear may be that people might not like us if we change.  Or that they'll expect more of us if we succeed in our attempted change.  Or that if we fail we're less a good person, or we'll have to answer to the people who said "I told you so."

But going after what's best for us is also the best way to increase that self-esteem, and not giving up.  Because even if we don't make the entire change we wanted, we learn.  And maybe we make some progress toward that total change.  We might not lose 100 pounds, but we lose 10.  We might not run a marathon, but we run ten miles for the first time.  We might not make enough money to quit our jobs with our new MLM, but we get $100 of residual income coming into the house.  And in every case, we learned something.  And we had a success, even if it's not the complete success we were going after.

So today, I want you to think about your goals and the systems you're using to reach those goals.  Are you trying to get away with making the smallest change possible?  Or are you going after a big awesome change that will make you the best you can be?

What do you think of this?  Comment below! 

Comments

  1. Extremely well said! The trick is not only steady progress, but changing your perspective. So many people fail because they don't really want to succeed, succeeding is just something they're willing to put up with to get their goals. What they'd RATHER do is sit on the couch eating ding dongs and watching TV and lazing about. When you decide what you WANT to do is be active, be successful, and reach higher good things happen.

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