6 Game Changing Ways to Create an Edge in Life and Then Some

 

By Chris and Eric Martinez

March 2015.

 

What You Will Take Away From This Article:

 

  • How to embrace the journey to getting results
  • Needing both negative and positive thinking
  • Solving problems in life
  • Putting a plan together to get started
  • Taking responsibility for your actions
  • Applying mental toughness to your lives

 

Life is good at creating a lot of problems for people, whether its adversity, pain, divorce, break-ups, death, stress, the list could go on. But, do you crumble? Or do you lean on your will and overcome it? Life is about a series of punches being thrown at us and eventually you will get knocked down. Even the great and most successful people get knocked down. But, it’s up to you to either stay down or get back up and keep swinging.

In this article we will be sharing our 6 game changing ways to create an edge in life and then some. We will be using training and nutrition examples to clarify our points.

 

1. Embrace the Journey to Get Results

When it comes to achieving results in any aspect of life, be true to what you believe in, regardless of what other people think or say. You can’t sit there and follow people just to please them because you will never ever please everyone. It doesn’t matter if you succeed, fail, or fall in between.

You’re always going to have someone disagree with your message, path, or whatever it is your doing. When it comes to making a decision about changing your physique, a good rule of thumb that we always follow is if it sounds too good to be true, then it probably is. Nothing good comes without hard work.

Embrace the challenge of having to overcome struggles when trying to change your physique. Instead of sitting there complaining about having a lagging body part, try embracing the challenge of having to overcome these deficiencies in your body parts.

Take Home Message: You only get one life to push yourself daily and see what you are truly capable of. Think of it as if you’re chopping down a huge tree, there will be swings that you take that will be insignificant, but you still need all of those swings to get the tree down.

Don’t get discouraged if you mess up or don’t get quick results, focus on what you need to do today to get to what you want 10 years from now. Results take time… weeks, months, years, even decades. It’s the day in and day out work, 365 days a year that counts.

 

2. Negative and Positive Thinking Are Both Needed

Having a constant positive attitude day in and day out is just not realistic and is abused.

Two things you should consider about always thinking positive:

1) You have to have a mix of both, it can’t be one sided. The biggest problem with people thinking positive all the time is they’re just lying to themselves every day. There are a lot of bad things going on these days in the world and to have a happy positive attitude everyday is just flat out not being realistic and lying to yourself.

2) Being positive all the time can keep you from getting out of a rut and could cause you to not make impactful changes in your life.

Here’s our point, for example, let’s say you want to lose 20 pounds of fat and gain 15 pounds of muscle mass in 2 months. Are you really going to sit there and say, “If I think positive for 2 months, day in and day out, and do all the necessary things, I can attain this goal?” In all honesty hopefully you don’t.

The reason being, it’s quite impossible to attain those goals in that short amount of time, no matter how good your training, nutrition, and consistency is. Also, will things not come up in life in those 2 months that will get you off your positive thinking high? So, you really have to be honest and true to yourself and be realistic with goals.

Take home message: If you sit there and be positive all the time, you will get complacent. How are you ever going to be realistic with yourself and see the negative things going on in your life and attempt to change them?

We’re not saying to implement negative thinking in your life just for the sake of it or to be around negative people…far from that. Just be realistic with goals and everything else that’s going on around you. Have a balance of negative and positive thinking so you don’t get complacent in life and you keep growing and progressing.

 

3. Solving a Problem

Let’s face it, we all face problems in life, whether it’s at work, a project, attaining a goal, school, marriage, relationship, personal, or the gym. The big question is, when it comes to facing a problem, are you a solution oriented person or do you make excuses?

These are the two different types of people when it comes to problem solving. If you’re a person that makes excuses and plays the “poor me, it wasn’t my fault” act, then move on to number four.

If you are a solution oriented person, here is a great tip: You must write down the problem first, the secret to getting ahead is getting started. Once the problem is written down, think of every remedy to solve it. Then analyze each solution and eliminate those that didn’t solve the problem fast enough, or efficiently enough, until you have a plan of action.

For example, you have attained your goal of losing 10 pounds. You’re feeling good and confident and figure you are entitled to have some “cheat meals” over the next few days as your reward.

But, you realize that you’re in a calorie deficit and you’re body has an unlimited capacity to store fat and if you take in enough calories to store a pound of fat, you’ll store that pound of fat.

So, do you make excuses and just eat away because you can’t figure out a solution? No, you sit there, write the problem down and figure out ways to have a few “cheat meals” in the next few days so you won’t blow all your hard earned results.

Now whether that solution ends up being to eat a controlled cheat meal, fit them into your macronutrients, or do extra “guilty cardio” all depends on the individual, but that’s not the point here. The point is to find a solution to the problem.

Take home message: Life will always throw problems at you, its part of molding you into the person you are becoming. So instead of making excuses, create solutions, write down the problem first, take action, and start getting ahead.

 

4. Have a Plan and Get Started 

When we say have a plan, we mean have a map that pertains to your goals in life. Once you have that map and that vision in your mind, this should be an automatic green light for attack mode.

Start researching, networking, getting your face out there, and take the necessary steps to attain that goal. Why sit around and wait? Why not keep your foot on that gas pedal and see where it’ll take you… Have a nothing to lose type of approach.

A lot of people these days have goals and plans mapped out, but they fear challenges, adversity, failure, and don’t end up accomplishing their goals. Fear is a good thing; it should be a mechanism for us and motivate us to overcome adverse situations in life. That’s where bravery comes from, when we are attacking things we fear.

For example, if you want to build a lean and muscular physique, then you have to have a plan mapped out and then get started. You have to know how many weeks this plan will be, how you will periodize your workouts, what your nutrition is going to be like, etc. You can’t just walk into the gym and have that physique handed to you without a plan. You have to do the research, ask people questions, eliminate fear, and most importantly get started.

Take home message: Whatever you goals are in life, make sure to have a plan first, then take the necessary steps to reach that goal. If you sit there and fear challenge and adversity, life will never be worthwhile. You must overcome obstacles and put in the work if you ever want to attain that goal. Build momentum to having a nothing to lose type of mentality.

 

5. Take Responsibility

When it comes to responsibility, we’re not talking about a responsibility of having to work an 8-5 job or a responsibility to cook dinner for the family, we’re talking more so along the lines of elite responsibility.

Elite responsibility that most people aren’t cut out for in today’s society. What a true responsible leader does when something doesn’t go right is he swallows that pill and he takes it.

When something sets you back, it’s a set up for a strong comeback. When you have a problem, don’t cry about it, get to how you can fix it and improve upon it. Don’t be afraid to take responsibility. The more successful you are it’s always double the responsibility.

When failure happens, be a grown up about it and accept it. Step your game up and march forward! For example if you lose a bodybuilding competition, don’t sit there and blame the judges, your coach, your peers, etc. You look in that mirror and take responsibility for knowing you did everything you could to look your best on stage. Just because you didn’t win doesn’t mean it wasn’t a successful prep.

Take Home Message:  In every situation you have ever been in, positive or negative, the one common thread is you. Responsibility means recognizing that regardless of what has happened up to this point in your life, you are capable of making choices to change your situation, or to change the way you think about it. If things don’t go right, keep your head up, take responsibility and march forward.

 

6. Apply Mental Toughness to Your Daily Lives

We need to apply our strength that we have in the gym into mental strength in life and carry that over to every obstacle life throws at us. Your gym doesn’t know what kind of problems you are going through. Even some of the closest people in your life don’t have a clue either.

Training your mind and body should go hand in hand. If you’re in the gym daily, hitting it hard, and giving it everything you have, after you’re done, you can’t sit here and tell us you don’t feel like a beast when you walk out of the gym to your car. With that same inner-beast that was unleashed in the gym and walking to the car, should be carried over to every aspect in life.

A good example of this is with a regular workout, people give up too easily because it’s not challenging. During intense workouts you push yourself harder and that’s the same way you should approach life.

You should not become a push over or get back to passive mode.  You carry that same aggressive mentality into your everyday life, no matter what you do. We say this because what is the point in only having that feeling for 1-2 hours of your day? If you have that animal feeling at the gym and busted your tail for it, then you have that right to carry that perception over to the real world.

Take home message: Apply that same strength that you have in the gym into mental strength in life and have that carry over effect in everything you do in life. Don’t be a pushover in life, relationships, work, marriage, etc. Look for challenges as this will make life worth living for. Be mentally tough and then some.

 

And Then Some

After reading these 6 tips, you’ll be much more prepared when life throws a sucker punch at you. Never back down when adversity hits, just remember its only failure if you quit, everything else is just merely a setback. Now get out there and face whatever life throws at you, see what you’re made of and don’t make any excuses, create only solutions.

 

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