“No one can change your life but you.”

I read those words in another post here, and it just so perfectly summarizes what I have learned through my 27 years of living. I started to make this a reply, but it developed into more of a post in length.

If you want to obtain the things you truly want in life, you HAVE to internalize this statement. You HAVE to realize that things won’t just magically get better down the road. When I was younger, I had a bad habit of having this fantasy that things would just magically fall into place in the future. That I would somehow become more confident and more successful. Somehow, it would just happen. As with a lot of our thoughts, writing it out on “paper” makes me realize how foolish that was of me to think.

The thing is, those things we dream about will never happen if we don’t live in the present and start putting in the work TODAY. And no one can do that except for you. The “lucky breaks” that we see others get are very often the result of internalized self-belief and confidence. Those things can only truly be internalized through putting the work in day in and day out, until you KNOW that you can go the distance.

I honestly believe that once you have acquired the skill set, and more importantly mindset, to get one “lucky break”, you can repeat that over and over. That’s why things seem to snowball for people after they have that first taste of success. In other words, they aren’t really lucky breaks, but the result of the internal state of mind you’ve cultivated. Look at the people who seem to be truly confident. Notice how they seem to get the best results time and time again. And when they do come up short, it doesn’t cause them to go into a tailspin.

To the above point, one more thing to add: I’ve also been guilty of trying to change my whole life in a day. I’m sure a lot of us have been there over the course of our journeys. We get a surge of motivation, and try to implement all of these great habits at once. After a few weeks, or even months, our motivation inevitably wanes. Instead of trying to dial back what we’re doing, we get discouraged and drop everything altogether.

So don’t worry about figuring everything out at once. For most of us, life is long. We have YEARS to figure this shit out. That is one good thing about being a man, we tend to gain value as we age, as opposed to losing it like women. Start small: a healthy meal here, a quick workout of compound movements there. Try talking to someone new once a week. So on and so forth.

No matter what anyone says, the population of men (or people in general) willing to do what is hard to achieve what they desire is getting smaller and smaller. Life is precious y’all. Get out there and make the most of it.