I want to talk to you today about perspective. We all know that perspective is the way that you look at things, but did you ever consider that it’s one of the biggest things that holds people back? In today’s post, I want to share with you 3 ways that a different perspective is going to help you level up in life. 1. THINK BIG! Thinking big is all about perspective. Small thinking is easy. It’s the perspective that most people have, and it’s easily justified as being “realistic.” In fact, when you’re truly thinking big and you share you vision with people, they’ll call you crazy. Big thinking comes down to belief. If you’ve got “crazy” goals and dreams, you just have to adopt the belief that they’re realistic goals and dreams. It’s the first step to achieving them. “Believe it can be done. When you believe something can be done, really believe, your mind will find ways to do it.” -David Schwartz, The Magic of Thinking Big 2. Work-Life Balance. We’ve all heard people talk about work-life balance. The average person in our country has adopted the cultural standard of a 40 hour work week. It’s been programmed in our minds that this provides “balance” between work and our personal lives. I want to challenge you to change your perspective on work-life balance. When I started my career, there was zero balance. The scales were tipped and I was constantly grinding. People in my life thought I was nuts! My friends and family told me I needed “balance.” Instead, I embraced a lot of unpleasant imbalance up front, and now I have the freedom in my schedule, and with my finances, to do just about whatever I want. 3. Climb The Mountain. The last thing that I want to challenge you to change your perspective on is the mountain that’s in front of you. If you’ve got big goals and dreams, or if you’re facing a huge personal challenge, it can feel like there’s a huge mountain in front of you. It can be overwhelming. From the base of the mountain, you may not even be able to see the peak. It’s cloudy up there and it seems impossible to reach it. This is where you need to change your perspective. Instead of staring at the mountain from the base and dwelling on how gigantic it is, change your perspective and focus on the path in front of you. Start walking! Take things step by step. Don’t worry about how challenging it may be halfway up, just worry about covering the ground that’s in front of you. Break your goals down into the small steps that will get you there, and just do it! Hiking analogies aside, embrace the process and get to work! If you change your perspective, you’ll change your life!

There is a huge problem with motivation. Don’t get me wrong, motivation is important, but by itself it is fickle. Motivation is based on emotions and emotions are temporary. If you wait to feel motivated to do something, then until the motivation strikes, you’re not getting anything done. In John Maxwell’s book, “The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership,” Maxwell says “We overestimate the event & underestimate the process.” Most of us have attended some event, or perhaps listened to a motivational speaker that sparked motivation within us. We leave the event fired up, focused on our vision, and ready to execute. The problem is that a week goes by, you run into some adversity, the event becomes a shadow of it’s former self, and suddenly the motivation is gone. “We overestimate the event & underestimate the process.” Herein lies the solution. Motivation is the “event” and discipline is the “process.” To achieve anything great in life, you must have the discipline to act, regardless of how motivated you are. Motivation is feeling like doing something. Discipline is doing it despite how you feel. So, we’ve identified the problem, motivation is temporary and feelings-based. So why is it that I say discipline is the solution? Because discipline creates motivation! If you’re disciplined, you’re working at something & you’re working on it consistently. When you work on something consistently, you’ll start to see results. When you start to see results, you’ll find yourself getting motivated. Take the gym for example. Think back a few months. How many people out there were motivated in January to hit the gym? Here we are in April, and the people that relied solely on motivation to go to the gym, well, they aren’t going anymore. On the flip side, there are people out there right now that started going to the gym in January and stayed disciplined, despite motivation. Those people are seeing results now. They’re in better health with NYGoodHealth. They’ve got a better physique. And guess what? They’re probably motivated by that. The point is, don’t wait for motivation. Embrace it as it comes but be disciplined regardless. Apply discipline. Get the results. Let the results motivate you. Rinse, wash, repeat.