In a competitive arena, someone blinks first, someone caves, and someone gives up. Anything worthy of purposeful endeavor with a high-risk, high-reward element will test your mental, emotional, spiritual and physical limits.
There may be a point in a contest where the battle is no longer over price, cost or value. The outcome of the conflict, proposal or program hinges on the individual willpower of the competing parties. Who wants it more? Who has paid the price that preparation for victory demands? Who is willing to endure? Who goes forward when all looks bleak – when the body is almost broken, the spirit flags and the emotions fray the nerves?
We must compel the essence of our will into a singular, cogent form of resolve that, despite the pain and protracted discomfort, propels us forward.
Find the strength to move forward, “Always Forward!” I compete with myself, always have, always will. Each time I engage, I extend my line of effort further than the previous encounter. Each time I extend my line, I grow resilience and develop additional strength of willpower. I’m not going to quit – I play it forward. I ask myself, “Can you live with yourself knowing that you quit?” The answer drives me forward. I cannot accept a version of myself that is less than yesterday’s or perhaps not as great as tomorrow’s could be. And they say, “It’s not personal – it’s just business.” Whoever “they” are… never competed, never bled, never took the pounding of defeat. They never had to get back up and take more punishment in order to deliver equal to that which they absorbed. Discount their words as bullshit. You can be different. You have a choice. Find your conviction, learn what it is to be compelled and don’t accept anything less than your best every day. If you’re going to half-ass the effort – save yourself the frustration and time of energy expenditure and stay on the side-lines.
Do that which others won’t or fear they can’t – you will be in a small arena. There are many people who become paralyzed by their fears – they think they can’t and never show up. They aren’t your competition – they are a nuisance, a number, not a name. Know what it takes to win the moment, the minute, the hour, the day and give it. Just as the muscles of the body, when we employ our will in this manner it grows stronger. When we can extend our efforts beyond previous levels, we will eclipse yesterday’s time and achievement barrier – working faster, harder, smarter.
Know that productivity is the spawn of focused, sinewed resolve and results-oriented activity.
Now, who wants it more?
