A Rant: Not Good Enough

Dear Younger Me,

You’re starting to do the “right” things:

Waking up early

Working out

Working hard

While all of those things are foundational, the hard truth is that it isn’t good enough. I am not trying to discourage you away from those types of things. Please, hear me when I tell you that those things are SO important. Waking up early, exercising, and working really hard. But what you’ll soon find out is that the act of doing is vastly different from the act of intending to do. You need to ask yourself why. Why did I decide to get up earlier?

It’s not that fun to wake up in total darkness.

Especially during the summertime when it’s not even cold out yet. People will still be able to outwork you in a lesser timeframe if you’re not hyper-intentional about your acts. If you are not taking full advantage of your action.

Confused? Let’s use the waking up early example:

You wake up at 4:30am. That is a good start. But it only works if you get proper sleep the night before. Did you still get good sleep? Were you disciplined enough to get to bed early? The action of getting up is a good first step, but the discipline to do it while you STILL get enough sleep is the more important second act.

Stack transformational action on top of initial intent.

That is the recipe for success.

You need to attack your motion with the right intent. So it isn’t just waking up early. That’s not good enough. It’s waking up early and starting to work. It’s waking up early and starting to work on the right thing.

Do you know what I’m saying?

The first step is to build a base of good intent. The more important second step is to do so with the correct action.

Be good. Get better,

Older You