How many fitness, diet, and self help books do you have in your library? Or maybe you enjoy reading how-to articles and you get inspired to start some new training program, diet, project, or business because deep down inside you believe it’s something you should do.
According to lifestyle designer and best-selling author Tim Ferris, he found that there are two things that cause you to not take action and simply feel hopeless because you feel there is nothing you can do. You’re wrong.
1. Insufficient Reason for Action:
Nice to Have, Not a Must Have
Simon Sinek said, “There is no decision that we can make that doesn’t come with some sort of balance or sacrifice.” When it comes to creating a change, it comes to your big WHY. And to get to that WHY, you have to be honest with yourself. Saying, “Oh it would be nice if I loss several pound” or “I’m tired of feeling like a slob and out of shape” or “I can’t do anything about it. I blame my genetics.”
“The secret of success,” Tony Robbins said, “is learning how to use pain and pleasure instead of having pain and pleasure use you. If you do that, you’re in control of your life. If you don’t, life controls you.”
In order to find a reason for action, you have to link pain to if you don’t take action and pleasure if you do take action. By doing so, it no longer is a nice to have but a must have.
Think of what will happen if you don’t lose weight, or grab control of your finances, or work on improving your relationships.
For example, if you don’t lose weight, the pain of not taking action:
- You’ll always feel hopeless
- You’ll never feel confident in yourself
- Your health will continue to decline and put you at a higher risk of disease
- You’ll continue to feel depressed
- You can’t play with your kids
- Your inaction to take of your health because contagious to your family and your surrounding.
To be honest, those are some of the pains I thought of when I made the decision to take care of my health and work towards becoming the strongest version of myself, to be Kū.
2. No Reminders:
No Consistent tracking = No Awareness = No behavioral change
This is why the 4 Pillars are so important. You need to be held accountable, have a support system in place, and have a deadline. Want to lose weight? Track something: calories, food you eat, or change unhealthy habits.
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You must track something in order to bring more awareness to what you are trying to change. When I competed in a Physique Competition, I did it without tracking food or cardio, but I tracked my progress through photos. It was a physique competition, nothing mattered other then your physique.
I’ve never been great at finances so I created a habit of tracking everything I purchased, which caused me to stop my impulse purchases and made me aware that I didn’t need many of the things I bought. So nowadays, I don’t spend money unless it brings me value not because I want it.
You can have the best program in the world but unless you track the proper variables and work on changing specific habits and behaviors, the program will not work.
Act with the Intention of Becoming Stronger
Zig Ziglar said, “You don’t have to be great to start, but you have to start to be great.” If something doesn’t bring strength, meaning, or value to me, I choose not to participate and I continue to learn how to get stronger. It’s a constant process and a journey I like to help you start.
When you act with the intention of strength, you view life differently and gets you to start being honest with yourself. Honestly expressing yourself, Bruce Lee said, now it is very difficult. And it is because there’s a voice in the back of your head that tells you it’ll be okay.
- Does getting a pastry every morning bring you more strength?
- Are you too busy to exercise 2-3 times a week?
- Does buying more clothes and shoes just because there is a sale bring your more strength?
- Does going out every weekend to get drunk bring your more strength?
For all of those, that small voice in the back of your head is telling you reasons to justify why all those things would bring you strength. But it’s not your honest voice.
The Kū Moment
You have to find your moment.
That moment when you take a stand and realize that you must change.
That moment when you feel the pain you no longer want to feel.
That moment when you say, “Enough is enough.”
That moment when you decide, it’s time to be Kū.
Have you experienced your Kū movement yet? If you have, please share your Kū moment in the comment section below. Mahalo.
