Some Timely Reminders….

G’day you highly-motivated, tough-as-nails, indestructible, ass-kicking, take-no-prisoners, get-outa-my-way…. GYSTers.

Heading towards the end of week two (well the working-week anyway) of the GYST Challenge and I’m guessing that you’re all doing some cool stuff and enjoying the change journey.
But maybe I’m being a little presumptuous.
You can let me know.

Remember this Challenge is not the journey, it’s the beginning of the journey.
So stop thinking four weeks!!!
Consciously focusing on the Challenge but subconsciously preparing for a life-time of different (new and improved) is where your head and your heart should be at.
Four-week thinking is what brings us undone.
Everybody can change for a while… but we’re not about a while… we’re about a life.

Remember that forever change ain’t about motivation, emotion, hope, luck or Craig’s Challenge.
It’s about commitment, attitude, toughness , discipline and self control over the long haul.

Today I thought I would provide a little relevant revision as we slide our highly-disciplined selves into the weekend. Not normal for me to re-publish anything but the vibe I’m getting is that the wheels may be a little wobbly for some of you (in terms of the creating-your-best-life-forever… stuff) and rather than me re-writing (essentially) the same material (about the same issues) I thought we may re-take a lesson.
Or two.

The following is taken from some of my past posts but don’t worry, I asked myself if I could plagiarise me and apparently it’s okay.
As long as I know.
I get so mad at me when I do things behind my back.
The other day I had to give myself a good talking to.

Revision Lesson One:
1. Be completely realistic and practical (not to be confused with negative) about the change process.
Don’t try and undo twenty years of bad behaviours and habits by next Tuesday.
Don’t try and change fifty things at once.
Identify your key challenges/concerns for you right now and approach those methodically, practically and sensibly.
Short, medium and long-term plans and goals.

2. Know that FOREVER change works from the inside out.
If you want forever change on the outside, you need to be forever different on the inside.
Not some temporary, manufactured, pseudo-change but real-deal internal change.
From today you need to think, choose, react, communicate and create different(ly).

3. Know that FOREVER change ain’t always easy or fun but it is always rewarding and amazing.
If you’re after easy… you may wanna (1) change that thinking or (2) get another goal.
As soon as we stop looking for easy and start looking for effective, then we start to see forever change.
It’s in the ‘doing’ that we get the growing and the changing.
Shortcuts are an illusion.
We’ve got more weight-loss shortcuts (available) than ever before… we’ve never been fatter.
We’re up to our neck in get-rich-quick schemes… we’ve never been more in debt.
Rest my case.

4. Plan for life beyond the emotion.
Once the euphoria, the excitement and hype die down… which they always do (to some extent), you need to cope with the (occasional) lack of motivation and drive.
Motivation (as we experience it) is temporary so we need to ‘do’ even when we don’t ‘feel’ like it.
Forever change ain’t about motivation; it’s about attitude, commitment, discipline, self-control and strength of character over time.

5. Get stuff done early in the day.
Being productive early gets your head where it needs to be for the day.
If it’s not convenient or practical, do it anyway.
Find a way.

6. Plan for life beyond the initial four weeks.
While your immediate focus is the GYST Challenge, forever change is about the next four decades, not these four weeks.
The Challenge is the beginning.
It’s you opening the door to the rest of your life.

7. Lose your short-term mindset.
While many people are consciously focused on a short term goal or project, they are also subconsciously waiting for the finish line… so they can revert to ‘normal.’
While they want to change or break that habit, deep down they don’t actually believe it will be a forever thing… and therein lies the problem Grasshopper(s).
This ain’t another ‘phase’ or an ‘attempt’.
Unless you make it that.

8. Get absolute clarity and certainty about what you want.
Too many people are indecisive, fluffy, wishy-washy (it’s a word) and vague about what they want their future to look like.
Heading in ‘the general direction’ won’t get you to a destination.
Get clear and passionate about what you want for your life.

9. Do something out of character.
Shock yourself and others.
Be less predictable.
Be adventurous and ballsy.
Take a risk or five.
If you always do what you’ve always done… you’ll always get what you’ve always got.
So do different to create different.
Consistently.

10. Accountability.
Have something or someone to keep you honest.

Revision Lesson Two:
Got a buddy (surprising I know) who is always just about to turn his life (career, body, relationships, finances, living situation) around.
Spoken about him once before.
Always at the threshold of something amazing.
Always about to re-invent himself.
Never actually doing anything… but always about to.

Always got a plan… never actually doing anything with it… but always got one.
He’s the plan man.
Talks a great game but never gets off the bench.
By choice.
Got all the answers.
In theory.
If life was a theory… he’d be a champion.
Wants great.. but chooses crap.
Keeping in mind that.. doing nothing… is a choice.

Saw him yesterday.
We had that conversation.
The same one we have every year.
The.. “I’ve realised a few things about myself lately, I know I’ve wasted a lot of time and I know you don’t believe me Craig.. but it’s gonna be different this time”… conversation.

It was like groundhog day.
And I was Bill Murray.
With biceps.

All that talent and all those brains… if only he’d put ‘em to use.

It’s like owning a Ferrari but never taking it out of the garage.
So much potential, so many possibilities and yet he leaves the super-car in the garage and ‘drives’ a thirty year-old Toyota.

If only he’d stop reading, hoping, planning, researching (sitting on the couch), thinking (procrastinating), talking (making more excuses) and actually do something (for more than a week), he could do, create and be… amazing.
Because he’s a smart, talented guy who’s wasting his potential.
And time.

If only he’d stop waiting for the planets to align and an angel to visit him in his sleep with instructions from the Almighty….
If only.

Some of us are going to wake up tomorrow (seemingly) and it will be 2012.

Five years will have passed and September 2007 will seem like yesterday… and not because we have an amazing memory.. but because nothing will have changed in our life.
We will have done nothing new or different.
Despite the fact that we desperately want… new and different.

Some of us will still be doing the same things, the same way, in the same situations and circumstances and still having the same issues and the same conversations with the same people and struggling with the same problems… five years from now.

But for some of us, it won’t be the same.
It will be worse.

And not because we can’t change.. but because we don’t.
And we will be frustrated.
Possibly angry.
Yet again.

And some of us will still be doing the things that (today) we swear we’re about to change (give up, stop, fix, address)… will still be held captive to those destructive habits.. and still be finding reasons to rationalise the life-we-don’t-want.. but continue to inhabit.

And again we will justify and explain our failure to do what needs to be done.
And again we will hope the ‘change fairy’ turns up while we sleep… and fixes our life.

Or maybe we’ll beat ourselves up yet again and continue to feel sorry for ourselves… because nobody has it as tough as us.
And nobody understands our situation.

Fortunately, it ain’t all doom and gloom.
Thank goodness.
The good news is we don’t need to (stagnate).
Really.
The good news is that we can create amazing results (in way less than five years) if we do a few simple (but not necessarily easy) things.

And no, this is not some psycho-babble, feel-good, positive-thinking crap; I have too little spare time to sit at my computer and write rubbish.
This is truth.
This is an absolute possibility… if you believe it and make it real for you.

This is not me trying to make you feel good or get you in a positive frame of mind for ten minutes. No, this is me talking to you about the practicalities and realities of changing your life.
I’m not trying to motivate you… I’m trying to beat you into action.
Because action creates change.
And motivation (the feeling) lasts five minutes.

I have worked with MANY people who have created amazing results (in a relatively short period of time) with limited talent, skills or resources because they simply got to that point.
And when people get there… stuff happens.
Big stuff.
Different-forever… stuff.

If only we can get out of our own way, we can achieve greatness.
Sometimes my biggest hurdle… is me?
And I know all about this stuff!
Waddabout you?

If today we are prepared to get real (serious), change our mindset, change our behaviours and take total responsibility for who we are, where we are and why we are.. then tomorrow (yes tomorrow) our life will be different because we will be different.

And when we change, our life changes.

And to everyone else… enjoy your Friday ( )

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