Respect the fact that people you’re trying to emulate have had to build the capacity for what they’re capable of.
Be patient, see it as a climb you’ve got to go on, and start hiking.
Inspiration without back-story can quickly lead to burnout.
–You hear X athlete who trains 3-4 hours a day and you try to replicate their regime.
–You read about X prolific author who writes 5 hours a day and you think you can go from zero to their level overnight.
No – you’ve got to be patient and work up to it with constant overload and gradual progression, building capacity with every step.
Here are 4 such examples (past and present) of people I look up to and whose daily practices I try to take on at least a fraction of.
–Eugene Schwarts, advertising legend, wrote for 3 hours a day.
–Rich Froning, fittest man alive, trains 3-5 times a day.
–Gandy, needs no introduction, meditated 1 hour a day.
–Ryan Holiday, media strategist, reads 3-5 hours a day. (An educated guess on all I’ve read about him.)
Find such inspirations in your own life, immerse yourself in their material and take on some of the standards that they’ve set for themselves.
Your immaturity will likely lead you to want to become them.
Really you have to overcome this and let them inspire you onto your own form of greatness, whatever that is for you.
If I were to try and take on the full demands of all four, I’d crumble (and believe me, I’ve tried). But that’s okay – it demonstrates ambition and a necessary delusion – so long as you learn the lesson and don’t beat yourself up about it.
Respect the fact that they’ve built capacity over time and that this is a slow journey you’ve got to go on to have a shot at reaching the heights they’ve gotten to.
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Sidenote: I picked these four areas because they keep me ‘in balance’.
James Altucher has a concept he calls ‘the daily practice’ in his book Choose Yourself which breaks this down and packages it really nicely. I’ve been doing the four for quite some time, but hadn’t thought of it in such an elegant manner until reading this.
The 4 areas to hit on a daily basis to stay in balance are:
–Mental
–Emotional
–Physical
–Spiritual
No matter what habits you adopt, make sure you’re filling these four (very broad) draws with something (and ideally having a role model for each). Doing so will keep your foundations solid, growing your base and expanding your realm of possibility.
If you want to do big things with real longevity, you’ve got to be hitting all four levels with intensity.