Overcoming Hesitation: The Key to Success

The longest time in the world is the hesitation between thought and action. It can actually be forever. You can hesitate for one second to get started on something—a workout, a project, a task, something that you know you should do. You can hesitate for one second, and that one second of hesitation all of a sudden turns into five seconds, and then ten seconds, and then ten minutes. Just like that, you’ve drifted into the eternal zone. One second became an eternity because something that was going to happen is now never going to happen, ever. Why is that? Because you hesitated. So, don’t take that chance. Instead, take action.

A Body in Motion Tends to Stay in Motion

A body in motion tends to stay in motion. A body at rest tends to stay at rest. You’ve had enough damn rest. You got to get to the point in your life where you decide, “I have had it. I’m tired of being a loser. I got tired of losing. I got tired of coming up short. I got tired. I want to move to the nicest neighborhood. I want to fly first class. I want to go to Hawaii.” I made a decision: enough is enough. It’s showtime.

The Power of Decision

In order for you to go from one level to the next level, in order for any woman to transition, for any man to transition, the thing that they want must be greater than the thing they currently have. Humans do not transition to another level when they are comfortable with the level that they’re on. You only go to another level when you say, “Enough is enough.” I want you to live the life you were meant to live, not the life that was given to you. You deserve to see what your life would look like if you gave 120%.

Execution is Key

And what I need you to do is look at yourself in the mirror and say, “Come on, stop playing. I deserve to see what my life would look like if I gave 120%.” That’s Lion Mode, and you got to get to a place where you start executing. Making a freaking plan is the easy part. And you have to understand, if you don’t execute on the plan, if you don’t get up in the morning when you’re feeling tired or scared, if you don’t execute, you’re not just cheating yourself; you’re cheating your family, your employees, your team—whatever you’re a part of. It’s bigger than you, man.

Take Ownership

And guess what? I had to get up even though it was hard, and I had to Take Ownership of my life, Take Ownership of my time, Take Ownership of my day. Those of you who messed up, it’s because you don’t understand: think, act, eat, rest. We’re talking about a schedule. I realize that my strength is in my routine. Why? Because I’m not as strong as I thought I was. I’m not as intelligent as I thought I was. It’s in my routine. It’s what I do every day, repeatedly. The DNA of your success is in your routine.

Find a Routine and Stick with It

You’re not as deep as you think you are. You got to find a routine. I’m getting up at three and sticking with it. I’m getting up at five and sticking with it. Yeah, out of 365 days, you’re going to have a bad day or two, but I’m telling you, the strength is in the routine. Find a Routine and Stick with It. No more dreaming. Dreaming is over. I need specifics. What are you doing on Monday? What are you doing on Tuesday? What are you doing on Wednesday? You need to be very specific.

Grind Through the Hardships

It’s time to put your piece together of your puzzle. Nobody gave me this; I earned it. Life wasn’t a crystal stair for me. Nobody gave me a network; I earned a network. I worked my way to the NBA. I worked my way to the NFL. Everybody says, “How did you crack the code?” I grinded my way through the code. That’s how I cracked it. I got up every day at three. I don’t care what the economy is doing; I don’t care who the president is. Nobody helped me to get here. I had to get up; I had to go to class; I had to read; I had to study; I had to write.

The Dream is Real

I understood that The Dream is Real, but the lifestyle is realer. It doesn’t matter what everybody else is doing. Stay predictable. Stay consistent. The reason many of you are not getting it is because you’re not consistent. You start and you stop. You get pumped up; you start strong, and then somewhere in the middle, you quit. You have a little success, but you don’t experience exponential growth because you’re not consistent. You got to be persistent. You got to be locked in. You can’t scoreboard watch.

Stop Scoreboard Watching

Too many of you are scoreboard watching. Every time you do something, you’re looking up to see the score. You’re stopping working to look at yourself. You’re not grinding; you’re glaring. You should be grinding, and you’re looking at the score. The score is what it is. The score ain’t about to change because you looked at it. Keep playing the game. Keep grinding. Keep working, and that other stuff will take care of itself.

Challenge Yourself

I’m challenging you to get from where you are. I’m challenging you to stop settling. I’m challenging you to stop accepting the life that was given to you. And I’m challenging you to give 120%. If you’re going to do what you say you’re going to do, be what you say you’re going to be, you’re going to have to be in Lion Mode. If you’re a gazelle, you’re going to come up short. If you’re a gazelle, you’re not always going to get what you want out of life. If you’re a gazelle, you’re going to have an average experience. If you’re a student, I need you in Lion Mode. If you’re a teacher, I need you in Lion Mode. If you’re an entrepreneur, I need you in Lion Mode. If you’re trying to lose weight, Lion Mode.

Lion Mode

You can’t do anything significant in gazelle mode. Nothing impressive happens in gazelle mode. Nothing happens in run mode, give up mode, quit mode, scared mode, fearful mode. Nothing happens. Everything happens in Lion Mode, like “I’m coming to get you.” You concentrate on this opportunity. You don’t worry about tomorrow. You concentrate on this opportunity with all your might, with all your soul, with all your heart. You focus on this, and tomorrow will take care of itself.

Consistency is Key

Are you going to say you want to do something, do it for two weeks, and then quit like you did last year, like you did the year before last? You say you want to lose weight, get in shape, get your business off the ground, and then turn around and party, drink alcohol, eat like crap, and continue to live below who you were created to be. How long is it going to take to make the decision, to make the shift, and show some courage? It is time to go from mediocre to meteoric. It is time to go from being counted out to being counted on.

Sweat, Sacrifice, and Success

I’ve never met anybody who became incredibly successful in any area of their life until they had suffered and Sweated and Sacrificed and kept their focus and fought through tears and trials and tests. And if you have a dream and you fully commit to it, sooner or later, if you do not surrender, if you do not quit, it will happen. When I wake up in the morning, I don’t think, “Am I motivated to go do what I’m supposed to do?” No, I don’t think about it for one millisecond. When the alarm clock goes off, I have no thought about whether this is easy, whether this is hard, whether I want to do it, whether I don’t want to do it. None of that matters. It’s an emotionless, thoughtless discipline. When the alarm clock goes off, you get up, you get out of bed, and you go do what you’re supposed to do. I don’t care how it feels. I don’t care if it’s easy or hard. It doesn’t even matter to me. It’s just a reaction. It’s a discipline, and it’s life, and that’s the way I choose to live my life.

Discipline Over Motivation

Too tired, too hungry, too sore, too hot, too cold, too whatever—people ask me what I do when I get those little feelings running around. Well, let me tell you what I don’t do. I don’t let them run around. As a matter of fact, I don’t even let those thoughts run around inside my own brain housing group. I keep it secure, lock it down. To me, this is an everyday gig. Every day is a Monday, an opportunity to come out of the gate like a man possessed and attack the day without mercy. Today, I’m taking scalps. I’m putting the pressure on. I’m the aggressor. I’m on the attack. It’s a lifestyle.

Embrace the Suck

Instead of hitting that snooze button in the morning and not making your bed, you don’t hit the snooze button. You get up. You don’t want to go run? You go run. You don’t want to go swim? You go swim. You don’t want to make your bed? You make your bed. You don’t want to clean your house? You clean your house. You don’t want to study? You go and study. It’s going to suck. It’s not going to be fun. Do something that sucks every single day of your life. That’s how you grow. The only thing you do for success is Sweat, blood, and tears. You think you’re going to get 50%? You think you’re going to get 70%? You think you’re going to give 80%? There is no discount. You can’t get 50% off. There are no shortcuts to success. Stop thinking there are and stop wanting people to put you somewhere that you didn’t earn.

The Real Beast

The real beast is when their legs give out. The Real Beast is when they’re tired. The Real Beast finds a way to pull something out when nobody else has anything left. When you really want it, you no longer hit the snooze button. You no longer lose focus when you’re studying. You no longer take shortcuts. You are willing to do whatever it takes. That means getting up early, going to bed late. That means you don’t go to sleep when you’re tired; you go when you’re done. You might have put in some time, but you didn’t put in the time. Yep, you did some workouts. Yep, you studied a little bit. Yeah, you put in some time, but you ain’t put in the time—the time that’s required to make your dream become a reality. You can’t shortcut success. You got to grind, and you got to put in the time.

Discipline Your Body, Free Your Mind

If you had the qualities of fortitude, grit, discipline, mental toughness, you wouldn’t need a program for your finances. You wouldn’t need another fitness program. You would understand how to execute. The missing link is, and always has been, you. In order to be the best, in order to get to the next level, you got to Sacrifice. You got to be willing to do whatever you’re asked to do. There are no shortcuts to success. There are no discounts to success. It’s always Sweat, it’s always blood, it’s always tears. You always have to give all to be the best.

Grind and Fight

I’m not going to sit around and wait for good things to happen to me. I’m going to grind. I’m going to fight. I’m going to do everything in my power to become the very best version of me. When you do the things most people aren’t willing to do, you will live the life most people never will. If you’re willing to take the harder way, the more complicated one, the one with more failures at first than successes, the one that has ultimately proven to have more meaning, more victory, more glory, then you will not regret it.

Hard Choices, Easy Life

If you stay in bed, if you stay on the couch, if you stay in your comfort zone, if you only do what is easy, your life will be hard. But if you do what is hard, if you get up, if you grind, if you are relentless, if you work as hard as possible when other people are slacking off, your life will be easy. One plus one is always going to equal two. Two plus two is going to equal four. And ten years of work when everybody else is partying, making excuses, doing the cool thing on the weekend, is going to pay off.

Confront Yourself

I get frustrated with humans when somebody’s late and they get upset. I get frustrated with humans when somebody borrows money from you and they don’t pay it back and you get upset. I get upset with humans when you go out to eat and they don’t bring your food out the way you want it, and you are so upset and you let them have it. But then you disappoint yourself when you don’t hold yourself accountable. You give yourself a pass. You’re not where you’re supposed to be financially, and you gave yourself a pass. You know you better than that. You know you should be further in life, but you keep letting yourself slide. That thing that’s holding you back, that thing that’s dragging you down, that thing is you.

You Against You

Your biggest enemy is you. People don’t understand; it’s You Against You. The only person that gets in your way is you. Nobody else. It’s you. I need you to confront you because you are the one holding you up. I need you to confront you. I need you to look in the mirror and tell yourself, “You are not going to do me like this no more. You’re not going to continue to sabotage me. You’re not going to keep procrastinating.” I need you. You’re not a loser. You’ve just made decisions that have created an environment that feels like it. Go look in the mirror, take responsibility for where you are, and admit to yourself that you are where you are because of decisions that you made, because of weaknesses that you had, because of your lack of ability to do the hard things when things got hard. That’s why you are where you are. And start right now fixing that. Start making better decisions right now, and before you know it, you’ll be living a different life.

Discipline and Control

The only person you can control is you. So focus on making yourself who you want to be. Discipline Your Body, get up early, and go get after it. And you’ll become the person you want to be. You become that person through one small decision at a time. Become the person who cannot quit. Become the person who can say no to the things that they know they’re supposed to say no to. Become the person who makes the right decision regardless of the circumstances, regardless of the hardships, regardless of the pain, regardless of the frustration. If you become that person, you have no limits in your life. There is no stopping that person.

Push to All Gears

You’re in third gear, and you have six gears, but you’re accustomed to third. You’re accustomed to fourth. I challenge you to push it to all the gears you got. I want to see how far I can go. I want to see what I can accomplish. I want to see what I can do, what I can be, what I can have. I want to see. I don’t want to see what I think I can do. I don’t want to see what I think is possible. I want to see what my life would look like if I didn’t count the cost. If I had the mentality that you got to want it, I’m going to try to be the best that I can be, the strongest, the fastest, the smartest human being that I can become. Better than I was yesterday. Better than people thought I could be. Better than I thought I could be.

No More Excuses

When you cut this off, I want you to go look yourself in the mirror, and I want you to vow, “No more excuses.” From this day forward, I’m not going to be getting pumped up. I’m not just going to be fired up. I’m about to start applying. Because listen to me very closely: the difference between people who talk about it and people who do it is one simple word—application. They hear it, and they don’t just hear it; they digest it. And when they digest it, boom, they do something with it.

Execute and Achieve

I don’t need you to learn a lot of stuff this year. I don’t need you to learn 40 things this year. If you can learn one thing—I’m talking about learning it. I’m talking about putting it deep within. Not just hearing it, not just reading it, not just seeing it. If you can give me one principle a month that you own, that becomes a part of who you are, that changes how you think, that changes how you behave, you can become an executor. If you can execute, you can do the unthinkable. You can make all your milestones become a reality. If it stops being a hobby, you’re doing it when you feel like it, you’re doing it when you get time, you’re doing it on your lunch break. You’re not serious. You’re not eating it. You’re not dreaming it. It’s not haunting your dreams at night.

Full Commitment

I’m telling you right now that those of you who are going to do the unthinkable, you have to shut it down. You got to shut the TV down. You got to shut certain people down. You are minimizing right now, and you need to optimize. This is going to be a Full Commitment to creating the kind of person that can make the right decision even when it’s the last thing they want to do. When they’re tired, when they’re sore, when they’re hungry, when they’re stressed, when they’re frustrated, when they’re angry, when the world is crashing down on their shoulders, they will still make the right decision. Your only solution

Read More: Overcoming Adversity: The Path to Success