Interested, Committed, or Fully Committed?

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"Without struggle, there is no progress." -- Eric Thomas

How committed are you to your cause?  Are you giving up sleep, meals, and social activities so you can pour absolutely everything you have into making your dreams become your reality?  Or are you merely interested, excited about it, and a participant when it is convenient?

If you are only putting in work when it is "normal", convenient, or easy, how can you expect others to go out of their way to buy what you are selling?

If you aren't willing to give up everything of yours to get where you want to go, how can you expect others to give up anything of theirs to help you get there?

Be great.

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Need To Focus?

First of all, I want to apologize for how inconsistent my blog posts have been as of late. I have been spending a lot of time studying for my MAT mid-term, which has kept me from keeping this blog up-to-date. Postings should resume to a more normal schedule in the next couple of weeks, however.

Okay so today I want to let you in on a technique that I have used pretty consistently in the past that has allowed me greater focus and productivity throughout my day. I first got the idea after hearing about the wonders hypnosis was having for a friend of mine. Because I didn't want to go see a hypn0therapist, however, I experimented with another idea--silent imaging.

Essentially, what I do is I turn off all of the lights and anything that could make noise. I then set a time for ten to fifteen minutes and I lay down flat on my back in a comfortable, anatomical position with my eyes closed. I focus on breathing through my nose, and then I clear my mind of everything except what it is I want to focus on for that day. When I started, I would imagine my facility--what I want it to look like, the floor layout, the exact square footage, how all of the equipment would be aligned. Then, I pictured myself moving in the facility and then performing daily tasks.

This all happened over the course of a number of months. I would try to get as absolutely detailed as possible with every aspect before moving on to the next. A lot of times I would end up falling asleep before the timer went off. When I would awake, I would feel refreshed and very, very excited to get working on my projects. My productivity during the times of my silent imaging soared, and every day I was excited to keep grinding on my work. The silent imaging was done on a daily basis for a while, then I cut it back to a few times a week. Now I do it every once in a while, not because I don't want to, but more because I am able to get the same benefits as before with doing it less frequently because I have programmed myself into a routine and I have a clear picture of what I am trying to achieve. That being said, though, I think I could definitely use another round after the last month.

Silent imaging is a technique that I highly recommend if you are having trouble accomplishing what you want to. Think about what it is that you desire, think about every single aspect of it, and then let that image carry you and you press forward with action.

Get big or die tryin'.

Charlie Cates, CSCS

Self Made®, Owner

Charlie Cates is a strength and conditioning specialist and the owner of Self Made® (http://selfmadefitness.com/) in Chicago, IL. He has worked with competitive and everyday athletes of all ages and ability levels, from 9-year-old kids to NFL MVP’s. He can be reached via e-mail at charlie@selfmadefitness.com.

This article may be reproduced with biographical information intact.

Find Your Focus

What has become very apparent to me over these past few years is that you can have all the goals in the world and as much motivation as you can possibly handle, but, if you don’t have focus, eventually you run out of steam and leave goals unreached. One way to think about this is to imagine a bon fire. The wood represents your goals, so the bigger the pile the more goals you have and the more motivation and focus you will need. The fire itself represents motivation. You can light a match and burn some kindling, and if you are really talented you might be able to get all of the logs burning with just that. Otherwise, you will need something else to keep the fire going and allow you to continue to pursue your goals. This is focus, or in our example, oxygen.

When you first start out to achieve something you will have some amount of focus simply because the task is new and you are excited about it. But as time goes by and you continue to try to achieve your goals, if you do not allow yourself to focus and provide oxygen to your fire, your motivation will quickly go out and you will be left with nothing but a whole bunch of unfinished goals.

So how do you find your focus? Whenever I start to feel myself slipping or have a day where I am completely unmotivated to do work, there are some things I do to get myself back on track. First and foremost, you have to make the time to allow yourself to focus. It doesn’t matter how good your intentions are, if you don’t make the time to allow yourself to focus you won’t ever have the opportunity to begin to focus, and focus will never come. Force yourself to turn away from the TV or computer and put your phone away, even if it is just a few times a week. Give yourself the gift of a moment in time where you are allowed to focus on yourself.

Secondly, when it comes to focus, you have to know your optimal learning environment. Focusing, like learning, takes a huge amount of mental effort. To be able to learn something new you have to be able to focus, so create for yourself an environment in which you can learn to allow yourself to focus. For example, I am stimulated more by auditory signals than visual, so if somebody has the TV on, me trying to read or do any work is a lost cause. However, if the TV is muted or if I am wearing earplugs I am good to go. The same goes with music. I can have music playing lightly in the background so long as the music doesn’t have any lyrics; otherwise my mind only focuses on the song. If you make time for yourself to focus in an optimal learning environment you have given yourself the opportunity to focus.

Just because you have the opportunity to focus doesn’t mean that will actually happen. In my case, creating a time with nothing else to do and everything quiet sounds more like an opportunity to take a nap than to do work. So, in order to avoid falling into the trap of becoming a sloth, always have little things you can do to help you get on track. For me, it is reading. On my coffee table I always have books and magazines laid out. If I am trying to accomplish something but am lacking a starting point, I can grab one of those books and start to read or flip through the pages of the magazine. This is not intense work and it activates my brain. Plus, because the reading I do is usually related to what I am trying to accomplish, I feel like I am progressing towards that goal, which in turn makes me more excited to get going on more intense work. Just like lighting kindling helps you to start the bon fire, having simple things you can accomplish will motivate you and allow you to focus on accomplishing bigger tasks.

Finally, once you get your fire burning the last thing you need is for it to be put out, so make sure others know that this pre-determined amount of time is your time. You are not to be disturbed during this time, so if this is too much to ask during the day then make the commitment to the morning before others are awake or at night after they have gone to sleep. Silence or power-down your phone and limit all other distractions as much as possible. You have put so much effort in to finding something you want to accomplish and are excited about, you have given yourself the opportunity to accomplish this goal by creating an environment and a space in time to do so, now you have to make the most of this opportunity by extending this time as long as possible.

Like I said last month, what are you going to get done by the end of this year? If there is something you want to do, do not wait until 12:00 AM on January 1st to start. Dive in headfirst right now. Know what you want to accomplish, believe that what you are trying to accomplish is of value, and find your focus to get the job done. Here’s to faith, strength, and passion.

Get big or die tryin’.

Charlie Cates
Self Made®, Owner

Charlie Cates is a strength and conditioning specialist and the owner of Self Made® (http://selfmadefitness.com/) in Chicago, IL. He has worked with competitive and everyday athletes of all ages and ability levels, from 9-year-old kids to NFL MVP's. He can be reached via e-mail at charlie@selfmadefitness.com.

This article may be reproduced with biographical information intact.

The Power of the Pen

Let’s brainstorm for a minute. Stop everything you're doing, grab a pen and a piece of paper, and let’s start to write. Why? Because writing is an incredible experience, regardless if you are talented or not. The process of writing, of being able to put your thoughts and ideas into words and form concrete evidence of consciousness, has many different effects on the mind, body, and spirit. For some, writing is a very therapeutic experience, calming the author and allowing them to relax or unwind from the stresses of everyday life. For others, words flow less freely and therefore writing becomes a source of frustration, especially when it is being attempted in a creative manner. But the writing I want you to do is neither for relaxation nor for creativity. Rather, the writing I am assigning you is for motivation and accountability.

This past summer I was let in on a little secret of Todd Durkin, owner of Fitness Quest 10 in San Diego, CA and trainer of Drew Brees and LaDainian Tomlinson. He told me about a writing exercise he does every three months called 90-Day Wonders. All you have to do is answer four questions, but you need to be honest with yourself. The four questions you need to answer are:

1) What do I want to have accomplished 90 days from now?
2) What do I need to get there?
3) What is stopping me from getting there?
4) What opportunities do I have right now?

What do I want to have accomplished 90 days from now?

This is the basis to the whole exercise. What do you want to be different about your life in three months? What goals to you want to have reached? The more concrete and measurable you can make you answers to this question the greater your chances are of accomplishing what you write down.

Don’t write you want to do more, how much more? Don’t write you want to lose weight, get stronger, or eat healthier. How much weight do you want to lose? How many pounds do you want to lift? How many whole-food meals are you going to prepare yourself every week? Exactly how many???

You can write down as many or as few goals as you’d like, just make sure they are things that you truly want to accomplish as cluttering up your sheet with a bunch of nonsense is only going to lead to frustration. Also, be mindful of the timetable you are working with. This is not a 5-year plan. This is what you want to accomplish in three months time. What small changes are you going to make in your life today that will lead to much greater changes down the road?

What do I need to get there?

This step is vital to the success of this exercise because this is where you break your larger goals down into things you can accomplish in the next day, hour, or minute. This is where you begin to let your plan of action unfold. Want to get back to your high school weight? How about you pick up the phone and schedule a session with your local personal trainer. Want to start spending more time with your family? Start a list of activities you can do together, and have that list grow by one or two each week. Give yourself steps to reach your goals that are too easy for you to not do right now, because once you take that first small step towards a goal, then all of the bigger steps down the road will come much easier.

You can answer this question in as much detail as you would like. Some people are very self-motivated and can easily commit themselves to accomplishing a task. These people can get away with only writing down the major stopping points between now and where you’ll be in 90 days. Other people, however, cannot get excited about making changes no matter how important they are, and these people usually need the most help, so for them it would make sense to write down every thing that needs to happen in order for them to reach the goals they wrote down. I would suggest writing down more steps than you feel is actually necessary to write simply so you can start crossing those steps off sooner and more frequently and begin seeing progress.

What is stopping me from getting there?

As with answering the previous two questions, you need to be honest with yourself here. The reason you haven’t already reached the goals you wrote down for the first question or completed the steps you wrote for the second question is because there has been something stopping you, and you need to identify it. This may be the most important question of them all, because once you have identified what may prevent future success you will be able avoid those situations or actions with much greater ease. And once you have removed all of the roadblocks and speed bumps all there is left to do is hit the gas and go.

What opportunities do I have right now?

This question does not refer solely to the job market, although if you are currently searching, writing those options down here is a valid response. Rather, this is a place to write down the opportunities you have in your everyday life to accomplish the goals you set for yourself in the first question. This is also an area to write down the opportunities you have to impact others’ lives.

So with these four questions in mind, I want you to start writing. Just to give you an idea of how powerful this exercise truly is, in December I wrote down ten goals that I wanted to have accomplished by the first week of March. I wrote them down, identified what I needed to do to get there, and put that Word document away. Two days ago I opened that document back up, and nine out of the ten goals I had written down had been accomplished and the tenth one is well on it’s way, as well. Ninety percent of those goals were accomplished. Just think about what you could accomplish in your life if you reached ninety percent of your goals. That is the power of the pen.

Your body.  Your Training.

Want to use this arti­cle in your blog, newslet­ter, or other plat­form? You may, but be sure to include all of the bio­graph­i­cal infor­ma­tion found in the "About Me" section below!