How To Stop Being A Loser

I don’t care if we’re talking about business, money, marriage or bodies. Look at every single person that is at the top of their game and you will see someone who has put in the hard work.

Too many of us avoid hard work because of the story we have about it. We tell ourselves that it’s too painful. It takes too much time. It won’t make a difference anyway. We think that by just showing up and passively going through the motions - that we’ll somehow arrive at success.

Go to my gym and look at the line-up of women on the cardio machines. On any given morning you’ll see Slumpie. She’s the woman bent over the magazine. Holding the sidebars to keep any discomfort at bay. Hunched over - not a bead of sweat. She passively spends an hour of her life. Daily. And has been doing this for months.

She clocks into the gym and waits for it to change her. As if her success depends on what the gym can do rather than what she requires from herself.

Look further down the row and you’ll see another girl busting her ass. She’s out of breath and pushing her limits. She won’t notice you. She’s not concerned with what you think. She’s there to work. And she knows that the gym can’t do it for her.

She stands out. Because, ironically, she’s the exception.

Too many people live their lives like Slumpie-On-The-Treadmill.

They start businesses and passively go through the motions. Pretending that the hours spent will magically convert to cash in hand. Wondering when they will start turning a profit.

They clock into jobs and submissively wait to be noticed while their peers pass them up.

They take classes waiting to be spoon fed by their teachers.

They half-ass their relationships with their husbands, their friends, their families. Too scared to take the risk to show up fully.

They wait for people to tell them what to do. Slowly and carefully they hold themselves back with fear.

They live life in the safety of mediocrity.

The real tragedy is the number of years, days and hours that The-Slumpies-of-the-World have wasted. Minutes that aren’t getting them any closer to their goals. Prime chunks of their lives exchanged for nothing.

But not us.

We know better.

We know that if we want it, we’re going to have to work for it.

We know that nothing worth having comes passively.

We know that we create the results we want.

We know that success is reserved for a very limited few of us.

And not because we are special.

Or lucky.

Or different.

It’s reserved for us because we are the first to start. And the last to leave.

We are the ones working circles around everyone else.

We are the ones raising our hands in class. Asking questions. Willing to look like the fool.