Have you ever heard that saying, “Winners never quit, and quitters never win”?

The essence of that saying is that if you want to be great at something, you need to be committed, consistent, and relentless.

It’s not really about how “hard” you work, but how long you are willing to wait.

That’s the mistake that many people make, they think working hard is the solution, but working hard is not truly possible to do consistently and continuously.  In the training world we talk about the idea of intensity versus volume.

Intensity is sexy, it’s explosive, it’s high demand…..it makes a statement, but it’s impossible to sustain.

Volume on the other hand, is far more elusive.  You can fill a bucket of water one drop at a time, or you can fill it with a fire hose, bottom line is that it can only be filled so high before it overflows.

So the secret sauce of success is the simple application of the always doing, never completely stopping, just keep moving monotony of consistency.

When you speak to those who have had great success, and by success, I mean that they are recognized for doing something really well, being the very best, or at least approaching that impression.

When you speak with them, or to those who have supported them or observed them intentionally, the same things are always mentioned;

Desire to do what it takes

Attention to detail

Consistent repetition

Adapting to feedback

Intentional practice

Intentional recovery

Sacrifice

Success….this type of success……isn’t sexy.

Maybe the outcome looks sexy.

There may be fame or fortune in some instances, but that’s really all medium dependent.  

Some of the best teachers in the world aren’t on the cover of Rolling Stone or Vogue magazine, but their students remember them years and years after they’ve been touched by their greatness.

You probably don’t know the best policeman(woman) or fireman(woman) in your town, but you will most surely appreciate their presence in a moment of crisis.

The truth is, arriving at being the best is about your internal desire to explore what’s possible within you through the never ending process of growth.  

You can let off the gas pedal, you just can’t let go completely, otherwise you’ll stop moving. 

Momentum serves to push us through the bumps and potholes of life, but when we stop moving, it’s an awfully difficult thing to get moving again.

Build consistent habits and practices that serve you, don’t stop moving, give yourself permission to slow down, but just don’t stop.  That’s the secret to greatness.

It’s not sexy, but it’s the truth.

Every day is a new day.

Some roll out without a hitch.

Some start well and for some unknown reason go sideways on us.

Some are just dreadful from the moment we wake up to the moment we fall asleep.

Not much we can do to change this right? We’re stuck with what happens each day, it’s just a matter of fate and circumstance, no?

Truth is that the day or even parts of each day don’t have to be determined by any particular moment of negative contemplation. Rather they can be re-framed by our perspective.

Our experiences in life drive our perspective and in turn our behaviors.

If something has happened to us in the past and resulted in a certain outcome, our brain likes to categorize that outcome, prescribe a reaction, and keep it for the next time it happens again, or worse, when it perceives it might happen again.

Yep, that beautiful brain of ours likes to predict so it can be prepared, so given free reign, it’s often likely to choose the path of least resistance.

Stay home, turtle, get out of the way, fold, or maybe just have a temper tantrum and storm away!

Much of the time, a bad day, or a bad part of the day will get defined by the way we frame the information, the way things are interpreted. We define things as binary, good and bad, happy or sad, up or down. Truth be told there is far more gray and far less definition in each moment.

But because of this nature, the outset, or the outcome of certain moments in our day can actually define our day and make it all look and feel far worse than it has been or will actually be!

What if I were to tell you that there are a few ways we can change our frame of mind and as a result, move the needle far more towards positive than negative?

Yes, it’s true, and the things you need to do are really simple, straightforward, and easy to implement.

What? Seriously?

Yep!

There are three techniques you can use, one starts your day, the second one can be used any time you start to feel a sense of negative energy welling up inside you, and the last one ends your day.

1 — Start Your Day with Intention

At the beginning of each day set one intention for your day. Intentions are objectives that are aligned with the person you wish to be and as such, they aren’t meant to be a part of a to-do list.

Intentions have meaning, they are connected to a feeling, the feeling of being a better person.

So, in the beginning of this process of re-framing your day, don’t be too hard on yourself and pick ten intentions you wish to make true, or even stress yourself with how deeply this question needs to be considered.

Simply take a moment to think of things that make you smile inside, things that make you feel warmer, happier, more connected to others, better about yourself, or simply calm you down. Make a list of all these things, chances are, they align with your spirit, and if they do, they reflect the image of you.

Now, just make sure that your daily intention is on that list, and get it done.

By simply setting this intention, you will feel better about your day, and you will be more connected to the intention of your day. When you get better at this process, when you know yourself, even more, you can begin to set more intentions at the beginning of each day that align with you, and your days will become even more powerful.

2 — End Your Day By Counting Your Wins

Just before you go to bed each night, take a moment to count your wins for the day. What were a few of the things you accomplished today? What were a few of the things you felt really good about experiencing? What were some of the things you did that align with you?

Make sure you write down the one intention you accomplished so you ponder your connection to that feeling especially.

The more these wins are connected to your intentions over time, the more powerful they will become.

Why?

Well first off, by just simply counting your wins you are creating a forced moment of positivity in your day. By doing it at the end of the day, your brain will recognize the positive energy and move you to a calmer place, and thus more likely a place where you will sleep more deeply. Good sleep equals a greater chance of waking up on the right side of the bed the next day.

So, counting your wins at the end of the day sets the course of your mindset towards a better start tomorrow.

But if your wins are connected to your true intentions, and your intentions are connected to the person you wish to be, well then all of this becomes just that much more powerful. The positive energy you will begin to feel over time will overcome most any negative kink in your day.

The accomplishment of each intention throughout each day will serve to re-fill this positive state and you will begin to become far more aware of your progress and intentional state of mind.

You will begin to own your day!

3 — Re-Shape Your Day By Minding the Gap

The third technique is not necessary every day, but rather a great strategy for cutting a slip in humor from becoming a landslide into the abyss. No matter what we do, there will be days when things happen, and we won’t always react well, and when these happen, our brain likes to ramp up quickly.

When you feel that negative self-talk begins to ramp up and that sense that things are going sideways, take a few moments to reflect. This might not work in the heat of the moment, but if you start to become more aware of when the energy of the day is moving you towards the heat, take a time out and reflect on where you’ve come from, what you’ve accomplished recently, or even over the past year or more.

Minding the Gap is an act of reflection that helps you gain perspective on your life in general. We get very much stuck in time. Stuck in the state of mind of today, or this moment and that state drive our perspective moving forward.

Instead, take some time to look back at where you’ve come from, where were you a year ago, a month ago, a week ago. What have you been able to do that you’ve completely forgotten about, something that is actually far more important than this little crisis today?

This technique is especially powerful when you have become more connected to your intentions and you are living them daily. Minding the gap will allow you to really reflect on how much you’ve gained through connecting with who you are and being more intentional about delivering it every day. This is a truly empowering experience.

1-Set your intentions

2-Mind the gap

3-Count your wins

Daily practices that will change your frame of mind and set you on a course towards a better you!

Every year at this time, we are reminded of our solemn duty to “remember” our fallen heroes of wars past.

One of the great challenges of this word “remember” is the impossibility of remembering what you have not experienced.

Perhaps that is our generation’s greatest gift and at the same time, our most glaring ignorance.

It is particularly difficult as we witness the terrible atrocities of war that seem to be a daily occurrence across the globe.

These last few years with what has transpired in Ukraine, and now in Israel and Palestine, the fog of war seems lifted, more tangible and evident to our eyes.

But that’s just it, unless you live it, you don’t smell it, feel it, or acknowledge it’s disturbing and unyielding cost.

The cost of losing everything of meaning. The cost of living in unimaginable circumstances, seeing the unbelievable savagery of humanity exploited every day all around you.

You go about your day, a life unexplainably anointed. So strange is this dichotomy of birth. Born to a place of wealth and prosperity, or born to a place of savage and unyielding pain.

Better yet, there are those within our ranks who choose to leave the soft underbelly of our comfortable lives and place themselves in harm’s way simply to protect us, and to protect those who cannot protect themselves.

Those who chose to give everything away, just because they felt the call to duty.

Then we are subjected to the rants of those among us who would wish to believe that our civil liberties are being constrained, our freedoms removed. Yet, here we reside still with roof overhead, food on our tables, and the opportunity to live a life so many elsewhere could never even imagine possible.

We who are so anointed by circumstance and luck must simply understand that there have been men and women who gave everything they had, in great suffering, so that we might have our freedom and serenity.

Our debt must be paid always in our thankfulness to the many souls who sacrificed on our behalf, not in complaint of our seemingly difficult first world problems.

Lest we forget…….we are the lucky ones.