In the podcast I guested I had said that “I am just average”. I had a friend listen and upon listening, ask me “do you really believe you’re just average still”? Context: I had just won the biggest event I have ever contested (in case you missed it) and was being asked to share my story of how that came to be. It was not only the biggest event I had ever contested, but a big event in general.
Upon reflection, despite the triumph and medal to prove it, I do believe I am just average. But I also believe that my willingness and commitment to excellence is not. I believe that my willingness and commitment to doing whatever it takes to be the best version of myself physically, emotionally and spiritually is not average. And because I choose to govern my life in all of my affairs by the principles of honesty, open-mindedness and willingness, I believe I can turn any venture into something seemingly extraordinary and incredibly successful.
And not because I am extraordinary or anything that you are not. I know a guy that was #1 at our car dealership for many years, working relatively normal hours and creating really respectful boundaries around his time (to this day I credit him to learning how to turn my work email notifications OFF as soon as work was over, and keeping them off until it was time to work again). He wasn’t super smart, or super talented, or super anything. Yes, he is smart, and he is talented, but by and large he didn’t possess any attributes that other people did not. What he did possess was an unfailing commitment to follow a proven system that worked, and to follow that proven system every single day without getting sidelined or distracted.
Every single day he would start his day with follow-up calls, only take set appointments (as best he was able) with customers, work with only the number of people he could respectfully tend to at a time and follow the same set of prompts and questions to get to their need and ask them to buy. Every day. Without fail. All of the time. He made the same number of calls, tried the same amount of times before he was denied, and never asked or questioned if it would work. Because it did.
This same philosophy can be applied to any area of our life. Systems, also known as routines and structure, are how we function: the government, traffic, corporations, diets, household chores, schoolwork – each and every one of these follows a chartered structure that when followed, is successful.
Take diet (a manner of eating, not the temporary thing most people throw out the window this time of year as holidays approach), which most of us fuck up because our emotions rob us of the simplicity a plan of eating can provide. If you follow the system of eating whole foods, minimally processed, in the right ratios and respectful amounts for your bodies need, you will not be overweight or unhealthy. Your body will be provided with the energy it needs and the nourishment that makes it thrive for the long haul. But because most of use a diet as a temporary means to get a very short-term result, we think they don’t work. Diets, or more meaningfully labeled as a plan or way of eating, do work, if we stick with them without jackknifing the process when our impulses to satisfy our cravings or to change the way we look or feel immediately sideline their proven track record.
Take work, regardless of your position. If you follow a system that charts out a methodology of time management and enables you to move from one “to do” to the next, you will be successful. It’s our own distractions with other people, gossip, social media, constantly checking email or whatever that ruin the system, not the system itself. If you can commit to working when you are at work, your work will never pile up unmanageably. If you commit to doing one task at a time, getting things done in their entirety when they are due, they you will never fall behind. If you keep boundaries around work and stick to them, you will not feel compromised. But we don’t. We want to socialize and drift and dream and then wonder why our shit wasn’t done by the hour we promised it would be. We let work dictate how we feel when we have clocked out because we lack boundaries that we have lives, too. That’s never works fault – that’s ours. And I used to fall under that trap 24/7 which is why I feel entitled to sharing my opinion; no finger pointing, all experience.
If you are in recovery from a substance or addiction to something trying to take the edge off of your life, you likely follow a system there too. We stay honest, we stay open, and we stay willing. We ask for help and we keep asking. We help others and we keep helping. We surround ourselves with other people feeling the same things we are, and we keep around them. It is only when we stop doing these things that we go back to our old ways of thinking and behaving, not because the system to getting and staying sober didn’t work.
Fitness is like this, too. I follow a system and regardless of how I feel, and I don’t waiver. I eat what my body needs to sustain the work I put out and to help me recover after it’s done. I get enough sleep to adequately prepare me for the next day and to help my body reset. I follow a program that ebbs and flows between ridiculously hard and quite pleasant, working my energy thresholds so I am constantly improving, a little bit each day. I follow a progressive workload prescribed by someone else that’s used it only hundreds of other bodies, instead of trying something on for a month and tossing it out when it doesn’t seem to be working. Time is the ultimate system, we just don’t trust it. Things I must earn is the most powerful acronym I’ve ever heard.
Because of these instilled systems that I choose to follow, I don’t think I’m average in my fortitude to do the next right thing for the goal I am pursuing. I don’t think my commitment to myself is average because this world surrounds us with people pointing fingers and feeling sorry for themselves (me last Friday!). But I do think I am average in my ability to produce. I may have a higher threshold for pain or a higher work ethic that has been developed over time, but I really don’t think I possess any inherent qualities that if somebody else really desired for themselves, couldn’t go find and finesse to fit their style.
And maybe, I’m full of shit too. Right? Because this is only my opinion about myself which I have derived from experiences I’ve had to date. Maybe I’m not average. Maybe I possess qualities that are lacking in others while they also possess qualities that are lacking in me. This isn’t to be one up or one below anyone, but rather to help steer the constant need to say “she’s faster”, “he’s got more resources”, “if I had all of that time I’d look like that too” and to start focusing on ourselves and doing what we can with what we believe and want most.
Because again, you truly can have and be anything you want. You just have to get out of the way long enough to learn that is really true.