Momentum

Rowden March 2016

● How smart or intelligent you are is irrelevant. What you lack in experience, skill, talent or strength and speed you have to make up by hard work

● If you always take 100% responsibility for all you do, with zero expectation of receiving anything in return, you hold the power. The day you graduate from child to adulthood is the day you take full responsibility for your life. Eliminate all excuses and choose to take control. Take personal responsibility. It is all your fault. Most of us unfortunately always have the attitude that the other person is wrong, rather than looking inside and doing what is necessary to put our own house in order. We can all take control by not blaming chance, fate or anyone else for the outcomes
● Where we end up in life is a result of the choices we make. Each choice starts a behaviour that over time ends up as a habit. Don’t choose at all and you are a passive onlooker in whatever happens to you
● Track every action relating to what you want to improve, this forces you to be conscious of your decisions. You cannot manage or improve until you measure what you do, equally you can’t make the most of you until you are aware of and accountable for your actions
● Routines are exceptionally powerful. With the good habits, develop routines for accomplishing the daily disciplines, which is the only way we can predictably regulate our behaviour. Control how your day starts and ends. Start your day with a feeling of gratitude for what you have; the world looks and responds very differently when you do this. At the day’s end review how it’s gone and what you may need to carry over till tomorrow. Log any insights you’ve picked up over the day and as the mind continues to process the last information consumed before bedtime focus your attention on something constructive to the progress of your goals and ambitions. Always start and finish strong
● Understand always that your choices, attitudes and habits are influenced by very powerful external forces. We are all affected by 3 kinds of influences: input (what we feed into our minds), associations (the people with whom we spend time) and environment (our surroundings). Be disciplined and proactive about what you allow into your mind. You get in life what you create, so what is influencing and directing your thoughts? Your mind is like an empty glass, if you fill it with all the bad things that are happening around you and in the world, you fill it with muddy water. If you have that dark, dismal aura in your mind, everything you create and try to do is filtered through this mess of negativity, which can have a severe even crippling impact on your creative potential. It’s not enough to eliminate negative input, you must flush out the bad and fill up on the good
● Your brain is not designed to make you happy its agenda is survival; to look out for the negative, what can hurt you or what you really need. You need to be extra vigilant to stop your brain absorbing irrelevant, counterproductive or destructive input. Nowadays the media bombards you with all kinds of negativity. It’s very easy for your mind to chew on this all day/night long
● Which people do you associate and spend time with? Research shows that your ‘reference group’ determines as much as 95% of your success and failure in life. The influence of your friends is subtle and can be negative or positive but either way is incredibly powerful. The attitudes of the 5 people closest to you have an unbelievable impact on your life. Upon close examination you may need to break away from some – completely. Others can be limited associations, a three minute, three hour or three day person. Just look at your relationships to make sure you’re not spending 3 hours with a 3 minute person. Remember when you put up boundaries between you and people they will fight you and try to drag you back down to their level. Keep in mind that the person you walk with can determine how fast or slow you go and even if you actually reach your destination. Ask yourself: ‘Who of those I know positively influences me?’ Get an unbiased, honest, outside perspective. Team-mates, partners, coaches should be open enough to tell you what they really think about you, your attitudes and performance. Find people who care enough about you to be brutally honest
● An individual needs to be open to being mentored. It is our responsibility to be willing to allow our lives and minds to be touched, moulded and strengthened by the people around us. What you wish to achieve may be bigger than the environment in which you find yourself. Sometimes you may need to move on to see your dreams realized. Each incomplete thing in life exerts a draining force on you, sucking the energy of accomplishment and success out of you. Think what you can complete today. Set standards for yourself, otherwise you get out of life what you tolerate, what you accept and feel you are worthy of
● When the going gets tough do you push through the pain or does your mind start inventing all sorts of convenient excuses? These are the moments where real growth and improvement live, where we can get to the front of the pack and seize the medal. There is a point in all our lives when we understand the real opponent is actually ourselves. It’s not getting to the wall that counts, it’s what you do after you hit it. Hitting the wall isn’t an obstacle, it’s an opportunity. When conditions are easy it’s easy for everyone, it’s only when situations reach a level of extreme difficulty that you get to prove you are worthy to progress. Don’t wish things are easier, wish they were harder and you better. It doesn’t take a lot more effort but the little extra multiplies your results many times over. It takes very little extra to be extraordinary