Early on in my career I was fixated on the result. I was obsessed with the outcome and thought about it constantly.

I would sit around and dream about what my life would look like, the cars I would have, the people I could help, the traveling I could do the lives I could impact. I’d think about all of the nice, shiny tings that come from being successful as well as the filled heart from serving those around me.

I always thought, “One day I’ll be able to do that. One day I’ll achieve those things. One day, one day, one day…”

Well guess what? I was missing the most critical ingredient of all. Hard work.

Well not entirely. I always used to work hard — in spurts. And that was the issue. I would sprint for 4 or 5 weeks, and take a break. Sprint for 4–5 weeks, and take a break. One of my biggest faults early on was the lack of consistency. I wasn’t discipline enough at the time to maintain my momentum that I had worked hard to build. When I gained momentum, there was something in me that said “Woah, slow down there, you don’t need to go that fast.”

That was a trait of mine that bit me in the ass time and time again. Every time I had a taste of “success,” I was almost self-destructive in a sense. I would over spend, under work and fall back into my bad habits. I put on weight, lost money and my business was constantly ebbing and flowing. It caused me to lose motivation over and over again and when that was lost — the idea of creating momentum all over again was daunting.

What Changed?

I was sick of living in the ups and downs. I was sick of making excuses and I kept seeing my goals and my dreams get further and further away. I went through a period of time where I wanted to just curl up in a ball every day. I didn’t want to face life. Who knows, maybe I even had a bit of depression…

Then I read something that changed the way I thought about this whole “game” we call life. It went something like this:

“The difference between successful people and unsuccessful people is that when successful people don’t feel like ‘doing it,’ THEY DO IT ANYWAYS.”

When I read that, it clicked. The journey became simple in my mind. I started doing the math in my head and realized that if I added up all the times I succumbed to the inaction of “not feeling like it” and simple did the opposite, that could have a profound impact on the outcome.

I know it seems like a simple idea, and it is, but when you are so far gone in the other direction, it’s difficult to comprehend even the most simple ideas and that’s where I was.

I started realizing that the results I received were in direct correlation to the input I was doing.

I realized two main things. These two things put together make you an unstoppable force and allow you do persevere even when you don’t feel like it because it’s not about you. These two things involve:

  1. Identifying how you can help people on a daily basis through what you do
  2. Introducing yourself to as many people per day that you can help and helping them to the best of your ability each and every day.

Imagine waking up and “not feeling like it” but then getting a text or a message from someone expressing their appreciation for all the help you’ve provided them. You have to be a real piece of sh*t to stay in bed and not get after it that day. If you do that, you may miss out on the opportunity to impact someone else’s life just like that person.

Over time what will happen, with the more good you put out there, you start to feel unstoppable. You start to feel like you can accomplish anything. You start to increase your income. You start inching, then sprinting towards your goal.

You start falling in love with the journey. You start learning rather than failing. You start finding opportunities to get closer to your goal. You start being the “guy” or the “girl” that people go to and when that happens, it creates opportunity.

So here’s my advice to you:

  1. Go do the thing you know you need to do even when you don’t feel like it.
  2. Identify, in a very specific way, who your target market is. Go find them and introduce yourself to them every. single. day.
  3. Serve, serve, serve. You must help people daily if you want to be able to persevere through the tough days.
  4. Learn, don’t fail. Any time you “fail,” you only fail if you don’t learn. If you learn from it, then it was worth the time, it was worth the headache.
  5. Be open minded. Listen to feedback, be open to grow and be open to the idea of opportunities when they come your way.

Now go out and put this stuff into action. If you’r reading that and you don’t feel like it today, perfect, DO IT TODAY!

David