everybody raise your hand

Everybody raise your hand… now raise it a little higher.

If you’re like most people you raised your hand fairly high, but still had something left to give, which gives you the ability to raise it a little higher on the second request. Why not give it everything you have at first?

You’ve never seen a successful author who says “I had a really good line, but I’m going to save it for my next book.” Or a professional bodybuilder who says “I had a few reps left in me, but I’ll save it for the next workout.” Instead, you hear things from the greats like “success is my only motherfuckin option, failure’s not.” The best people give their best effort all the time.

We hold ourselves back by setting up fictitious barriers in our head to stop us from committing to fully engaging in the work that needs to be done so that we can use that as an excuse not to try because we are SURE we are going to fail.

These barriers are all self-made and self-imposed. Fear of failure is never a reason to not give your best effort. At worst you will have to change an opinion, method, or direction. Yet, without fully committing, seeing it through and failing, you never give fate an opportunity to intervene.

There is only one you. Give your best effort at who you want to become because if you’re not living the life you dreamed of, you already failed and haven’t realized it.