Like many people, Angel and I spent years struggling to make even the slightest bit of progress on the goals we had set for ourselves.
We started new workout programs with incredible optimism at least a couple dozen times. We threw away all the junk food in our house more times than I can even remember. We tried waking up earlier, meditating, reading more often, writing a book, getting out of debt, running a business, and more…
But, for the longest time, we failed on all fronts.
We’d get started with a new goal, and then we’d get derailed.
And boy did we feel horrible!
We often felt like losers … like no matter how hard we tried, our goals were out of reach! And we’d berate ourselves constantly for not being stronger, smarter, and more disciplined.
But what Angel and I didn’t realize, until we started successfully achieving our goals a few years later, is that it was never a matter of us not having enough strength, intelligence, or discipline. It was a matter of us focusing on our goals in an ineffective way.
In fact, believe it or not, we were actually focusing on our goals too much.
Yes, you read that right. It sounds counterintuitive, but it’s the truth. [Read more…]