PAYING THE MAN: WHAT ARE YOU WILLING TO PAY TO REACH YOUR GOALS?

Pay the Man

Have you heard this saying before?  This is the slogan of one of my favorite professional athletes Josh Bridges.  He’s a retired Navy Seal and five-time CrossFit Games Athlete.

Pay the man?  

What does it mean? What are we paying him? Who is he? Why do we have to pay and how the heck do we do it?

Here’s what I think it means. We all have goals. And we all draw a line where we say, “My goals are worth more than X.” If we want to cross that line, we have to pay the man.  

People tend to move like water, seeking the path of least resistance. This is often wise, but I am not so sure we should apply this principle to the most important aspects of our lives – our health, fitness, relationships, parenting, and business goals.

Your life will offer you plenty of opportunities to either act with boldness and courage or conversely to take the easy way out.  

Everyone can do the easy stuff because it’s easy.

But the hard stuff–that’s where to invest your time and effort. Take professional athletes. These guys and gals make sacrifice after sacrifice to achieve their goals. Do you think these people are rolling out of bed magically proficient in their chosen sport? No way. They’ve paid the price of sweat, blood, and numerous failures from which they’ve arisen time and time again. They’ve poured their souls into this hard work. It certainly wasn’t the easy route.

Time is the one thing in life that’s worth the most to me.  

I finally realized I’ll never get more of it. None of us will. There will never be more than 24 hours in one day, for anyone. How I spend those precious hours, is my choice and my choice alone.

Do you tick the hours of the day away, attending to everyone else’s needs at the cost of your own health and happiness?  If you answered yes, ask yourself–does that make sense?

If you’re not happy AND healthy, you won’t be able to continue taking care of those around you. I promise, the time will come when your body, health, and spirit will deteriorate and this will impact your ability to enjoy life on the most basic level.

Think about your goals.

Do you have enough time to give them?

Are your goals aligned with how much time you have? For example, are you only willing to commit 3 days a week at the gym while your goals require 5 or 6? Is your goal to lose 15 lbs at crosshairs with your lack of commitment to preparing and eating the right foods?

If your goals aren’t aligned with time or commitment levels,

it’s time to rethink one or all three.

In order to achieve something different, you must be willing to do/try something different. Along with trying new things, learning new skills, and reaching new levels of ourselves, must come a willingness to not be “the best,” at least for a while.

You gotta be willing to show up and suck before you can show up and shine.

Progress is always the result of the continuous effort put in over time. If you show up on day one, embarrassed and self-loathing because of the things you can’t do, you’ll never get better. It’s that simple.

Too many people write off anything they can’t do with ease. If they can’t do it perfectly from day one, then it must not be right.  However, staying within your comfort zone and sticking to the things you’re good at will never yield big change or results., but leaving your ego at the door and committing to the journey might.

What I’m getting at is simple.

Taking the hard route sucks in the short term, but it will make you stronger in the long run. You can apply this to learning a new skill, picking up a new hobby, or just asking hard questions that will require introspection, action, and change.

And if you take this lesson to your whole life, you’ll never go back to coasting.  

At the end of the day, there’s a price to pay if you expect to reach a higher level in anything, not just fitness or business. Nothing worthwhile comes easily. The future that you hope to have isn’t free.

Put the work in.

Decrease excuses and increase commitment to #paytheman.