This is NOT a Negotiation: Stop Letting Yourself Off the Hook, and Start Achieving Your Goals
Astounding results will appear in your life when you pledge never to let yourself down, and when you put the rest of these ideas into action...
You’re very persuasive. You may not think so, but you are. You have this uncanny ability to reduce your targets, to make yourself feel better for taking it a little bit easy today, and to quit when the real “suck” starts to set in.
And you know what? I used to be awfully persuasive too. I’ve let myself down too many times to count, and I effing hated it every single time.
I’m never going back there, and for you, it stops today.
It straight-up just feels awful to break a promise to yourself, to leave the gym — or work, or the field, or any situation you find yourself in where you care about the outcome — knowing that you’ve left some of your potential on the table. That you could have done more.
These days, I hate giving up on myself and letting myself down — I hate it so much that I refuse to do it. Ever.
I don’t tell myself that it’s okay to skip this last set because “my workout’s running a bit long, and I should really get home.”
I don’t tell myself that I’ll read fewer pages today because “I‘m a little bit tired today - I’ll make it up tomorrow with extra studying.”
I don’t tell myself that I can load up my grocery cart with garbage food because “I’ve stuck to my diet really well this week.”
These explanations, cop-outs, excuses, and concessions do NOT reflect reality. The reality is that you have committed to achieving a certain RESULT, and your complete and total focus MUST be given to achieving that result.
Anything less than doing your absolute best is letting yourself down.
I’ve truly come to believe that.
Speaking of self-discipline, one of the best definitions of it I’ve ever come across is a relatively simple one that phrases it nicely:
It’s not a “suggestion” and it’s not a “question” of whether or not you’re going to follow through on the promise you’ve made to yourself - it’s a commitment.
It’s a commitment to give your absolute utmost to that thing that you said you were going to do.
And I’ll tell you right now from personal experience: when you stop “negotiating” with yourself and start serving up a “take it or leave it” commitment, magical results start to appear in your life.
Your forward progress will be nothing short of astounding. I guarantee it.
Your old negotiating tactics won’t work on yourself anymore — it’ll be like trying to negotiate with a brick wall.
Yes, you’re a tough negotiator and you can promise yourself the world (“I’ll do it tomorrow when I have more time.”), but all your persuasiveness and inventiveness are no match for a firm commitment.
One More Important Thing
This is pretty tough talk, and it might be difficult to hear (“What do you mean I’m not doing my best? I work hard!”). But you’ll notice that I’m only talking about promises you’ve made to yourself.
You don’t owe your life to anyone.
But what I also feel is important to mention is that you have to set realistic expectations, and you have to develop a feel for what your best actually is.
I’ll definitely be writing much more about these ideas in the future, but for right now, and especially while you’re still in the “trust-building” phase of your relationship with yourself, don’t promise yourself something that you can’t reasonably deliver.
Sure, you can make a “promise to yourself” to work on your business plan for 3 hours every day…and read for 5 hours every day…and go to the gym every day…and and and. But if you have a day job, family commitments, or whatever else, this just isn’t going to be realistic for you.
In that case, you’re not “letting yourself down” when you find out that you simply can’t do the impossible. No one expects you to do the impossible, but you should expect the best from yourself.
A better approach is to make small promises to yourself at first, prove to yourself that you’re “trustworthy” and that you can follow through, and then make larger and larger commitments over time.
You can promise yourself something extremely small, like you’re going to do ONE pushup today, or read ONE page in a book…but then you have to actually do it.
Following through on your promise to yourself is MUCH more important than what you’re actually promising. At least at first.
Then, when you’ve built up trust in yourself (which is a legitimate superpower, by the way), you can also increase what you ASK of yourself and you can start finding out how good your best actually is.
Hint: Your best is so much greater than you know.
Bringing It All Together
If you can’t trust yourself, who CAN you trust? You simply HAVE TO build up trust in yourself over time, and you can’t do that if you’re always negotiating with yourself and looking for ways to do less.
And I totally understand: there have been many days where I have done less than my best and I knew it. I can feel it when I give up on myself or when I let myself down, and that feels so effing terrible that I’ve pledged never to do it.
Honestly, it’s much better to do your absolute best and fall short, than it is to set little tiny goals and achieve them while approaching them halfheartedly.
It all starts with realizing the utmost importance of being your own strongest ally and confidant; setting realistic expectations about what you can do and accomplish; and committing to raising those expectations over time as you discover how great your best can actually be.
My suspicion is that most people can’t even SEE what their best LOOKS LIKE. They have all these excuses and rationalizations for why they’re not where they want to be in life when in reality, much of it is a matter of being trustworthy and of following through on the promises you make to yourself.
Have an awesome day, and I’m looking forward to seeing you at your best.
All the best,
Matt Karamazov
P.S. Thank you to everyone who has signed up so far to The Competitive Advantage - there are 39 of us! 40 including myself, and I will include myself because we are in this TOGETHER.
I don't think I’ll keep a “regular” publishing schedule - but I’ll be writing at least 1 article on self-discipline and success each and every week for you guys.
And every Monday, I’m going to be publishing/sending my Weekly Achievement Report, which will be my OWN way of staying accountable to you guys and letting you know that I’m working just as hard as you are.
The next
one goes out this Monday, and I don’t think I’ll publish anything here until then, so I guess I’ll talk to you on Monday!