Pushing Boundaries
Let’s talk about pushing boundaries.
Many of you are your own worst coach. I’m a great self-coach. I can coach the hell out of myself and I can push my own boundaries every single day.
Why? Because I coach everyone else for a living! I’m able to recognize my own weaknesses and accept them – and I can recognize that small gains are the way that you push your own boundaries.
Often times I hear men say, “tonight I’m going to go out and I’m going to get three phone numbers.” You haven’t gotten three phone numbers this whole entire year, but tonight you’re going to go out and get three phone numbers in one night? How?
That’s not pushing your boundaries – that’s just trying to be Aaron Rogers and take the Packers to the championship game without ever having thrown a pass. (You can see how I feel about the Brett Favre situation – and no, I’m not a Packers fan, and I think that they are ridiculous – what a battle of egos that is! Let the guy come back and play – he threw 28 touchdown passes this year! Good luck, Aaron Rogers, you’re not going to get more than 17…)
Or it’s like you’re a light-hitting shortstop who has hit one home run the entire season, but you decide tonight that you’re going out there and hitting three. That’s not pushing your boundaries – that’s just not recognizing small victories and gains and accepting them. That’s just being ridiculous.
So how do you push your own boundaries? If you go out there, and you say to yourself, “I haven’t had a conversation with someone of the opposite sex that has lasted longer than 15 seconds,” then to push your boundaries, you need to have a conversation that lasts 20 seconds. The next day: 25 seconds. The day after that: 30 seconds.
You need to push your boundaries and accept the small victories every single day. It’s not about becoming something that you aren’t overnight – it takes a long time to become that powerful, dynamic, social person. It takes a lot of time to become a great conversationalist.
So make a list of the things that you want to accomplish, go out there and accept the small victories. The small victories are what are really important.
Don’t try to win the Superbowl in one night. There is a reason why NFL players are in training camp right now. Why? To practice all of the little things so that they are able to succeed on Sundays.
You can’t beat the odds of life, guys – you just can’t. In life, everything takes practice, hard work, self-motivation and every once in a while, a kick in the ass.
Consider me that kick in the ass. For those of you that have never listened to my products, I really suggest my Men’s Mastery Series or Women’s Mastery Series – that is almost 13 hours of me kicking your ass the whole time. When you need a little extra push, I’m there to give it to you.
And for those of you who don’t want to reach into your pockets and buy anything, that’s fine. Come back each day and read the blog, and I will give you daily doses of ass-kicking that will help you realize that life is not a sprint – it’s a marathon!
Seattle Bootcamp is kicking into high gear. I love this city and this is an amazing group of guys.
Today we talk all about how to strike up a conversation by the bathrooms.
August 16th, 2008 at 10:56 am
This is such a great message that I think we need to hear over and over again. Sometimes when we get excited to make a change, we get a little … overambitious … about when and how we’re going to achieve it (hence the examples you gave).
Then what can happen is that you wind up giving up because you either feel the task is too big or because you failed to achieve the “too big” goal you set for yourself. By taking a change like this in smaller bites, and getting a little better at it every day, making a huge change becomes both less intimidating and totally doable.
This is the blog we need to re-read everytime we feel something overwhelming to us … Thanks!
August 16th, 2008 at 12:26 pm
Yes, so true! I used to be my own “worst coach” as David put it, so I can verify this as an impractical way to go about learning. Baby steps every single day!
August 16th, 2008 at 12:46 pm
this is a great blog!
I find useful to keep a journal.
I have started writing it few weeks ago (David also wrote a blog about journals few weeks ago) and it is funny to look at some things that I wrote a week ago!
At the end of each day I relive my day and jot down what I think were my “little” wins. No more than 10-15 minutes. It helps a lot to realize that small things really matter.
I started to believe in this saying => small steps, BIG results!
Keep it coming David. Slava
August 16th, 2008 at 2:08 pm
This is the same concept as people making ridiculous new years resolutions that they never keep. Go to a gym on January 1 of any given year and it’s a mad house of people who have vowed to workout 5 hours a day every day of the week and lose 30lbs. in 3 weeks. By the end of January they’re gone from the gym and haven’t reached a single goal. It’s great to set ambitious goals, but they’ve got to be realistic and then broken down into bite sized chunks. Enjoy the bite sized chunks, they’re tasty.
I find it useful to keep a journal for pretty much everything that I want to track the progress of. A few years ago I focused on losing weight and kept a journal to track it, and what do you know I met and exceeded my goal. My focus now is to get better at the art of conversation, so I keep a journal on my interactions with people (anyone, not just women). I track my strengths, weaknesses, areas to work on, good interactions, bad interactions, and daily goals to work on. It’s not only a good goal, but I’m having a lot of fun doing it. People really are great, but sometimes you’ve gotta bring them out of their shells. I love starting an interaction with someone that is very droll and boring and by the end of the conversation they’re smiling and laughing.
I really like the analogy of life being a marathon, not a sprint and use it all the time. As long as your analogizing life to a journey, remember to enjoy the journey and not focus on the destination. We all know what the destination is anyways.
August 16th, 2008 at 2:19 pm
Great comment Adam!
I love your gym analogy … Anyone who goes regularly to a gym HATES those first 2-3 weeks after “New Year’s Resolution Day” when hoards of overambitious but undercommitted folks come in determined to get into shape in approximately 3 workouts …
I think you also hit on something else great … that we SHOULD get excited about making a big change in our lives … but we should channel that excitement into seeing the “bite size” day-to-day results we get along the JOURNEY to those big transformation goals.
August 16th, 2008 at 10:01 pm
Yes, that would be why that saying about the longest journey starts out with one step, sorry about the paraphrasing, but that’s what happens with truisms…
I’ve always maintained that the best place to meet men is outside of the men’s room…Being Mom to two now adult boys, is that an oxymoron?, I’ve hung around many a men’s room over the course of the years. Trouble is that I didn’t appreciate it when I had to do it on a regular basis…
August 17th, 2008 at 5:18 am
David-
One thing I really love about this blog that deserves more attention. Becoming your own self-coach! Standing on your own two feet, learning your weaknesses, and pushing your boundaries for no one but yourself is the way to go!
August 17th, 2008 at 5:21 am
Oh, and how about exploring the cost per load ratio too! That really should be measured for economic calculations, I bet that number is way in the billions.
August 17th, 2008 at 5:46 am
Rich have you ever tried the attiitude of gratitude- every morning think of the things you have in life( health, etc ) that you love and this puts you in a great mental state and in a great mood and like David said in a prev Webcast you just talk to everyone and you have this energy that people will comment on and you will be unstoppable.
August 17th, 2008 at 5:47 am
David the new webiste is fantastic and love the Youtube blogs
August 17th, 2008 at 7:40 am
Aww, here’s a sad story about how you THINK you’re pushing boundaries:
my older brother starting working out at the gym a couple of years ago, after having played football for many, many years but quitting his team! he had a heart surgery.. his heart had a hole, and so he had to go through a pretty complicated operation.. he was about 10 or 11 then.. he recovered well and had been active since..
so he started working out at the gym, without consulting those fitness guides at the gym about his health!! he worked out too hard, too often.. wanting results too fast.. now he’s ruined the main muscles in his back and cannot lift anything heavy.. for the rest of his life, probably
he can’t even go runnning without getting cramps in his back! sad condition to be in. he wanted to become a policeman, but couldn’t because of his health..
even now, he goes crazy from time to time, wanting to build muscles (he’s perfectly slim!! not too big, not too small =S) going on diets, then breaking them and over eating protein meals!
i am emailing him this blog!!
i myself love jogging and running! however, it took me two years of running regularly to be able to run for 60 - 65 minutes at a time! it goes up and down.. you’re never really there.. you have to work hard, all the time! my goal is to participate in the oslo marathons one day
August 22nd, 2008 at 8:11 am
to bertie,
You stand by the mens bathroom?
August 22nd, 2008 at 8:12 am
to bertie,
The mens bathroom at the gas station or where?…..LOL!……