I once a blog wrote a blog and inserted the following quote “effort is what it takes, for God’s sakes”. I still stand by this since life is all about the little things. This is something that most people don’t seem to understand. Most people are treating everything they do like a sprint rather than a marathon. They put in a great effort and then they get comfortable which is the beginning of the decline of whatever they’ve invested in. This can apply to everything: career, friendship, relationship, sports,… This attitude makes sure that a lot of times they either quit, are forced to quit, or do enough to get by but not enough to improve. I don’t understand these people to be honest. I don’t want to either. Relating to lazy people isn’t something that I want to be able to do. They never see the beauty of daily effort. To them, it’s just a burden all along and that mindset will hurt them in the long. Let’s take a look at the beauty of daily effort.
The beauty of daily effort.
Commitment, honor, focus, hard work discipline, integrity. All of these down to earth values have 2 things in common. They make people great and all of these things aren’t developed overnight. It takes daily effort to achieve those. And this is something that most people just don’t seem to realize. There are consequences to always seeking comfort and avoiding the discomfort as much as possible. The consequences include the fact that you’ll never feel self- realized, never feel like you accomplished something. You will never understand that difficulties, struggle and the ability to push through that is like a muscle. The only way to develop that muscle is by using it. Which is why I like the idea of daily effort. In the end, you will develop self- satisfaction, peace of mind and you’ll see that you can overcome obstacles.
But there is more to the beauty of daily effort…
Impose struggle on thyself or struggle will impose itself on you. There is a theory that people are hardwired to face struggle. Luckily for us, we can choose what kind of struggle we face. Well in most cases, there are things we can’t control of course. The ones that we can control fall into the category of daily effort. So it’s basically up to you whether you fill your life with useless drama or struggle that makes you grow. In the end, struggle leads to discomfort, the discomfort will stretch your comfort zone which leads to growth which leads to happiness. This is only true if your struggle is meaningful though. I like to struggle in the gym but I would never want to deal with the bullshit that some people deal with every day. Their struggle doesn’t lead to growth. It leads to unhappiness. Well, that and no growth. I prefer to master the art of not giving a flying fuck about irrelevant stuff.
But what about rest days?
I love it when people start asking about rest days. You earn your rest days aka you work before you rest. Most people think about resting before they’ve even put in the effort. I guess we still have a weak generation as I mentioned in 2018. Even on rest days, you work on the things you want. On rest days I’m still active. I swim, walk, watch tape and so on. Active recovery is a part of recovery plus I can do other things to make sure that I grow as a person. Reflection is an example of how you can struggle mentally. Introspection can be painful and most people never do this because they want to avoid discomfort once again. Do you see where this is going? You wanting to avoid discomfort isn’t that innocent as you think. It’s a lifestyle and it’ll hurt you until you decide to stop sabotaging yourself.
So isn’t it time to rewrite the narrative of your life?!
isn’t it time to realize that escapism will do you more harm than good?!
Isn’t it time to realize that you can choose your struggles and pick the right ones?!
Don’t forget to buy my latest book: “The Year Of The Alpha: 366 Lessons On Adding Meaning To Your Life! It’ll take your life from Zero To Alpha. (you can buy it here)
Till next time.
Alex
