I’m bout to ask you a few questions, then give you some strange advice. You ready? Good!
As you set new goals and ‘resolutions’ for 2021, can I challenge you with something?
(It doesn’t matter how you answered, I’m still gonna challenge you, because I’m a challenger 🙂
Focus 1st on defining WHO you want to be before deciding what you want to DO.
I’m telling you… there’s magic in this.
It’s WHO before DO.
Before you write down a list of things that you want to do or goals you want to accomplish, ask yourself this all important question:
WHO do I want to be?
Write it down.
What does that better version of you look like?
It is imperative that you figure this out. Identity precedes Activity.
Then ask yourself:
What would the person I want to be DO?
How does this person exercise, eat, spend, relate, and show up on a consistent basis?
Again… Identity precedes Activity. Who comes first. Do comes later.
We tend to live out the identity we believe ourselves to possess.
So here’s the strange advice:
Stop talking to yourself as if you are who you were.
Start talking to yourself as if you are who will be.
For all of my life, I’ve hated to run. Sure, throw a ball in front of me and I’ll race you to get to it like I’m a golden retriever, but ask me to run in circles or on a treadmill??? Yeah, not for me bro.
But at the beginning of 2020, I asked myself who I want to be, and I answered myself:
“I want to be fit.”
Guess what boys and girls? The fit version of me is a runner. So I set a goal. A goal to run. Because Fit Josh is a runner.
Then I started telling myself the new truth about Josh Melton (or for the more cynical folks reading this, I started lying to myself). I’d get on a treadmill and say (over and over again):
There’s nowhere in this world I’d rather be right now than on this treadmill.
I love to run.
I’m fit. I’m fast. I’m forty.
(I turned 40 in December, so I tied this image to the 40 year old version of myself and spoke as if I were already that person).
Guys, I didn’t feel any of that. It didn’t feel true when I was saying it…at first. But somewhere along the way, it did.
Little by little it changed.
Little by little I became who I set out to become. I was telling myself the new truth & providing myself with the proof.
Guess what.
Now I’m 40.
Now I’m fit.
Now I’m fast(er).
Now I love to run.
So let me ask you these questions:
WHO do you want to be?
What does that person DO?
Now go prove your truth my friend.
Require excellence from yourself.
Inspire excellence in others.
To your excellence & beyond,
Josh
