Why you aren't going hard enough.

Some people think long and hard about what separates them from their goals. Not many people ever come to the realest and the most honest answer which is “you”. You stand between your current circumstances and where you want to be. It doesn’t matter if you have aspirations to lose 10lb this month, become one of the fittest people in the world, start a business, get married, make an extra 10k this year, the answer is still you. To be more specific the answer is how hard and how long you are willing to chase this particular goal. 

You may know the steps that you need to take in order to achieve your goals. For example you may know that you have to show up at the gym to get fitter, or you may know that you have to be thoughtful and considerate to become someone's significant other but to what degree do you actually pursue those things. What most people often don’t realize is that many of us in this world are capable of the same type of actions, in fact many of us have similar “to do” lists everyday. The most obvious example I can share with you is that there are very successful CrossFit Games athletes that share EXACTLY what they do with others so they can follow their training plan. I’ve known these athletes, and I know what their product is like and they are truly sharing everything they do. With that being said, wouldn’t you assume we’d see young athletes starting to catch them? Or maybe after a few years someone else would take over their dominance or reign of success? Well none of those things are happening simply because now others know what the greats are doing in their training. Why? 

It is not what you do, but how you do it. You see, you and I can show up to the gym and do the exact same workout as each other every single day. But over the course of a year I am getting fitter and you may potentially be staying the same, but everyday we are right there beside each other doing the workouts. What is the difference? The difference is “how” we do the workouts. The difference in most examples both inside the gym and outside of the gym is “intensity”. It is intensity that dictates the way results happen. Intensity is the independent variable most commonly associated with maximizing the rate of return of favorable adaptations. More commonly stated intensity is where we get the good stuff, period. This means that when we look at any increase in performance, any increase in quality of life, any increase in a couples relationship engagement and how they interact, it is due to a shift in the intensity of which they approach what they are working on. 

You can make a choice to workout, but are you going hard? You can make a choice to do things a “CEO” does, but how hard are you doing them? And what level? You may choose to dial in your nutrition, but with what kind of focus and what kind of consistency? Because all of these things tie back the intensity at which you decide to attack a potential obstacle or problem. If you get anything from today’s write up, get this: It’s not what you do, but how you do it. So what ever “it” is for you, do it better!