You’re NOT Lazy. You Lack Stamina…
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Your biggest goals will require your deepest level of focus.
And, yet, those are the goals that are easiest to get distracted from.
They’re exciting in the beginning (when the desire is high) and, after a while, once you get a sense of just how long (and just how much work) this goal is going to take, you peter out.
Sound familiar?
We’ve all been there and, in those moments, months after we said “Hey, I’m going for this BIG dream!”, we feel a sense of shame and disappointment. We look at ourselves and say “See? This is why I am where I am. I never finish what I start.”
Essentially, when people see themselves as quitters, they also see themselves as lazy people who, for whatever reason, can’t seem to stay focused on the task at hand.
But, what if that’s not true? What if there’s another, more serious reason why you aren’t following through? And what if knowing that reason is actually the key to freeing yourself from the excuse of it? Because it is…
And here’s the deal: You aren’t getting distracted, not following through and, therefore, not living your dream because you’re lazy.
You’re doing all of those things because you lack STAMINA…
And stamina is built with intention over a long period of time.
So let’s break down stamina…
Stamina, by definition, is the ability to sustain prolonged physical or mental effort.
It’s one thing to sprint for half a mile; it’s quite another to keep your legs running for a 26 mile marathon.
One is about speed; the other is about stamina.
The same applies to pursuing your major goals in life.
Far too often, people mistake the need for speed over stamina. They think if they can achieve a goal fast enough (by applying a boatload of intensity) they’ll outsmart their lack of focus and consistency by achieving the goal before they get distracted by something else. That never works…
If you find yourself trying to move so fast (to avoid the inevitable loss of desire, interest, and focus), you’re approaching your lack of consistency from the wrong perspective.
You don’t need more focus UNTIL you develop plenty of stamina.
How do you develop stamina?
The same way athletes develop stamina in their sport of choice (and, notice, an NFL player is good at football but throw him into soccer and see how much he flounders IF he hasn’t played soccer consistently over a long period of time).
To develop stamina on your dream, you need to do ONE thing:
Practice frequency…
In other words, you need to take the Daily Massive Actions (DMA) that lead to your ONE goal and you need to practice/complete those tasks EVERY SINGLE DAY…
Now… I can hear some people saying “I don’t work 7 days a week” or “I take a Sabbath day so that’s not going to work for me” or “What about taking a rest day?”
I hear you… and, if that’s your non-negotiable thing, then do 6 days a week… but let’s be clear: someone who takes DMA (Daily Massive Action) 7 days a week will always get farther faster than someone who does DMA 6 days a week. As long as you’re willing to accept the loss of productivity that comes with taking an entire day off, then do that.
There’s power in working on your ONE big goal 7 days a week.
You become so in tune with the work that you don’t start each day asking “What did I do the last time I worked on this goal?” You start right where you left off.
You also get more efficient with daily practice.
In a matter of weeks, you’ll see how much more you’re getting done in the same interval of time… because you’re building stamina through frequency.
At the same time, as you get more efficient and you produce more in the same amount of time, stamina gets built when you apply more pressure, additional requirements, and ask yourself to deliver stronger results in that same time interval.
And this isn’t about mastering stamina in a few months. This is about understanding that the key to sustaining prolonged physical or mental effort is to sustain it over a long period of time and, when you master that interval of time, to prolong it even further so you are constantly applying more resistance to ‘muscles’ (i.e. your goals) that need advanced levels of training.
And that’s the thing that gets lost when you attribute your inability to stay focused to laziness- you miss the ENTIRE point.
Saying “I’m lazy” doesn’t give you a roadmap to success. Telling yourself “I need more stamina” builds in the blueprint to achieving the goal.
And one more thing… frequency isn’t easy. You’re going to fail quite a bit in the beginning. But, once you’ve built the frequency habit (working 7 days a week) for a minimum of three months, it becomes the easiest thing in the world to do because now it’s a habit.
The first three months are hard… and the rest of your life doing this becomes easy.
Take the hard now so you can succeed AND let it be easy later…
