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Crushing Debt
Your mind doesn't want to start. Your brain likes to rationalize behaviors about why you are not doing this or doing that. Sometimes, you can't actually pay some of your debt off, instead, you might have to forgo that in favor of rent. That's perfectly all right! However, you do make a conscious decision, when you have $20 available per week, and instead of using that for debt, you pay for your burger king. This is a conscious choice that you make. Contrarily, no matter how big or small your debt is, it always is "small" to you. And this is why I love the snowball method. When you consistently pay $20 towards your smallest debt chunk, you are practicing consistency and you snowball your life over time. The snowball is your life's mirror. The $20 rolls up over time and before you know it, you have paid off $100,000 in debt. Don't think too much about your debt. Don't hyperbole the debt in your mind. It's small potatoes. Whenever you have additional cash available, just pay down the debt. Don't worry about the interest. Don't worry about anything else. Try to be consistent and it will pay off in the long run.
Set up a $10 auto-transfer to a checking account or savings account weekly or monthly: that's your choice. Then, forget about that account until it becomes inconsequential to you. Every once in a while, you will remember you have that account, but you don't even touch it or think about it. Like I mentioned about crushing debt above, if you give your brain license to kill, it will kill. And by kill, I mean it will kill your bank account. Maybe you will start buying all of the Amazon products in sight like me, but unless you set the boundaries straight, you will be unable to amass a rainy-day fund to be prepared for anything. A checking or savings account is just a hub for everything else. It's a hub for your daily bills, amazon account, utility bills, rent, and groceries. It's not a way for you to invest in your future, it's a way for you to plan for it. If you lose a job, you get sick, etc., you are going to have the fortress to cushion you to prepare in advance should you be disciplined to do so. If I were to lose my job today, I'd be prepared to plan for tomorrow because I have about 3 months saved to land another job no matter what the economic climate is.
Declutter Your Home
Discipline is freedom. That's what I learned observing Jocko Willink, a Navy Seal combat veteran who has made a fulfilling life for himself by incorporating the rudimentary, yet the hard basic discipline of "discipline". Usually, the tell-tale signs of a lack of discipline are laying around you. Ask yourself these questions. Is your sink dirty with a lot of dirty dishes and pots or pans? Is your floor dirty? Do you have a lot of boxes laying around? Do you have too much stuff you can't seem to get rid of? Learn how to be organized, and that starts with enforcing structure in your life.
The best way to start is to declutter your home. Start incorporating more of a minimal lifestyle where you can then just focus on what fulfills you. Material objects don't fulfill you. Your goals and daily habits are what fulfill you. When you have the vision to make your day-to-day things the actual things you want to do from a daily standpoint, you are fulfilled. When you focus on material objects as a source of happiness, then that's when you start to lose your focus on the true mission.
When you wake up early and get the non-fulfilling daily tasks out of the way, such as cleaning your sink, vacuuming your house, making your bed, and then focusing on the day-to-day tasks that actually fulfill you, you will be happy.
Sometimes, less is more. When you have fewer things, you have fewer things to maintain and take care of. That makes it easier for you to focus on what YOU want to do. If you have less square space to clean, you have more time to focus on doing Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. The list can go on and on.
Lower Your Anxiety
The thing about performing at a high or low level is that you eventually develop extreme anxieties. At its low, you start questioning yourself "how do I perform higher?" At its height, you start questioning yourself "how do I become more balanced?" The answer is the middle ground: "be more present". I have struggled with both ends of these anxieties and both of them can be crippling. The beauty of life is that the more you struggle, the more you become grounded.
When you become disciplined, you gain structure and you regularly and consistently do the things you hate to do to move forward in life. EXPECT and WANT those small incremental gains. Similarly, that's the beauty of strength training naturally. You only gain incremental strength with consistency, and when you stop the consistency, you lose those gains quickly. You have to be viciously stable in being VERY okay with taking the gains that you can and being protective of those gains. With this comes the anxiety that you must always be on time, and regimented. And as a result, when you miss a workout, you start to become extremely irritable and lash out at those you love near you. Home in when you start feeling those emotions and learn to let go of micromanaging behaviors. Learn to be level-headed. Don't sweat the small stuff, let the small stuff sweat you.
If you become too lax, however, you become undisciplined and operate at a lower level, you have more chaos, and you are stuck in a fear trap. You are stuck in a revolving door, where whenever you try to open a door, you open another door that never closes. The actual scary thing about this trap is that it can lull you into a period of stagnancy that can last for years. Whatever gains you had, were lost because of a lack of consistency.
When you become present, you aim to get your regular workouts in, but if you miss a day due to normal life stressors, you are perfectly all right because you are flexible about it. You already know you are making those incremental gains and you are snowballing your life and goals forward because of the consistency over the long run. You don't sweat the small stuff. You don't sweat missing out on only ONE day out of THREE-HUNDRED-SIXTY-FIVE DAYS! You don't let it eat you because you know you are consistent and that you will just make up for it later. You have a perfect stableness where missing one workout will not kill you because it does not consume you. It doesn't own you. This is the balance that structurally sound, HIGH achieving operators employ. This is why cheaters never win in the long run. People use steroids to get quicker results and achieve their goals fast. They never last by the way. These are metaphors for anything you want out of life and not just fitness by the way.
Doing Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu will help you learn more about yourself and your teammates and hold you accountable. The higher belt you attain, the more you will win in life. You learn to technically and precisely navigate life's ebbs and flows. In fact, Jiu Jitsu is my therapy and helps me not only become more zen but also more fit. I learn about life's structure and balance better. You can't have structure without balance, and there is always that delicate middle ground.
Growing up, I wanted to become a world-class MMA fighter and I always wanted my black belt from Marcelo Garcia. At one point I almost let that dream escape me and I knew that I needed to surround myself with world-class people on and off the mats in order to become better as a human being and as a martial artist.
Well, in late 2019, I protected that dream and started that journey. I packed all my stuff into my car and drove from Kansas City back to the east coast, where I grew up, and then moved to NYC. I signed up at Marcelo Garcia's academy in his NY headquarters and I couldn't have made a better decision. Eventually, I did become a much better BJJ player and human being, and I can't wait to evolve more and eventually gain my black belt from Marcelo.
When I used to watch ADCC and all of his matches on Youtube, that's who I wanted to emulate, and X Guard was one of the first books I bought.
Start One Side Hustle & Make it Your Permanent Job
Stick to one hustle that you feel will take you to the top and ultimately quit your full-time job. However, you have to choose just one hustle and stick to it for at least 2 years. At the end of those 2 years, revisit your goals and think about whether you want to stay with this hustle or not. That way, you have maximized every possibility and know without a shadow of a doubt that this is or isn't your goal. Don't be like me and have shiny object syndrome, where the latest trends or money-making tips or tools intrigue you. Do not drop thousands of dollars of your own time and money doing other people's visions for themselves. If you want to stick to copywriting, stick to that wholeheartedly. If you want to get into retail, stick to it. And do what you are best strong at. Focus on your strengths and never your weaknesses.
by creating your eulogy. Think about your death. When you are young, you don't care much about the consequences of living. But as you get older, and begin losing your loved ones, you look at the mortality of life and its essence. You look at balance more because you realize that you are older now, and that you haven't accomplished many of the goals you set out for yourself when you were younger. You realize that the people around you are dying and get the sudden realization that you forgot to smell the roses along the way.
On your own eulogy, what would you like to be spoken of you? That is your vision statement. That is how you want to be remembered in this world. If you want to be a very GOOD and righteous human being, that is an EXCELLENT goal. If you want to be a LEADER of the world, and you want to guide the youth in the right direction, that is also an EXCELLENT goal. Do what makes you, you. And do it well. Don't waste time on the small stuff but DO take time to smell the roses at the small incremental gains that you consistently protected and cherished. Protect your bonds with the people you deem your family and hold those close because they will be your core support and structure for the world you face head-on.
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