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Winning in life means being 1% better every day and being 1% better than the competition.
I’m reading The Psychology of Selling by Brian Tracy to learn how to be a better salesman (my day job is selling car wash equipment for AutoBrite Company in San Antonio, Texas). The beginning of the book is about motivation. And I don’t know about you, but I could use a little more motivation in my life. So I’m actually reading this book for a second time and enjoying it more this round.
In the book, Brian talks about being just a little better than the other people. And doing just a little bit more every day. He talks about the winning horse at a horse race. The winning horse wins prize money about three times higher than the second-place horse. The first-place horse is not three times faster, didn’t work three times harder, or is three times better than the second-place horse, he only has to be faster by a nose. Winning the race by a nose is the difference between $600,000 and $1.86 million in prize money. Not bad for a nose length.
You don’t have to “10 X” your life every day. Or be better than everyone else in your industry, office, or life by a lot every day. You just have to be better by a nose today than you were yesterday. And tomorrow. And the next day. And the next, and every day from now until you achieve your goals.
In high school or military terms, you just have to be able to beat up your yesterday self today. Can you beat your yesterday self up today? Can you do it tomorrow? And the next day? And every day until you achieve your goals.
Since you only have to beat yourself by a nose from yesterday, that means you only need to do a couple of things every day to be better the next day.
Doing little things every day for a lifetime is what winning life looks like and how you get there. 75 Hard Challenge will help you get there. By doing five things every day that will improve you, you will be able to beat your former self.
When you go for a workout it never feels like you are better than yesterday, but as long as you worked hard, you are.
Same thing with your job. Are you getting better at it every day? Or just being the same as you were yesterday?
With your family, are your relationships growing and getting stronger, or did you just let them stay where they were yesterday?
Everything in life is growing or shrinking. There is no standing still. Sometimes you grow or lose in big ways, but most of the time the change from day to day is imperceivable. You just have to know and believe it is there and keep doing the things that make you better.
Sometimes, like in most businesses, the growth is so slow that you might have to work at it for years and years before you can really see a difference, and then you become an overnight success in about ten years.
What are you doing today to be a better you tomorrow? How are you winning life?
Ben