Ahh, the age old saying, “this year will be different.”  I am not a pessimistic person whatsoever, but odds are you will not be entirely different this year.  Now before you get up in arms, let me explain.  Changing who you are as a person is very hard to do, and I am not entirely sure that it is even a good idea.  To go from person A to person B literally overnight is very hard as who we inherently are has been built and ingrained into our brains and bodies since we were born.  I am a believer that constant improvement is a benchmark that can be achieved by a slow but sure molting of layers and progressions.  

While my time on this earth may be shorter than most, I would still like to think that I have been able to consciously observe and articulate a good amount of my experiences up to this point: the  good, the bad, and the ugly.  Then try to connect the effect to the cause.  I think that you may be in agreement that across all aspects of life there is a common theme of stages we go through. Sometimes these stages come in the form of going through struggles and hardships on our path forward.  Taking two steps forward and one step back, or maybe even two steps forward followed by two steps backward momentarily.  Examples of this that I am able to find in my own life are through football, fitness/health, and property.  It is my hope that through those examples you are able to associate my examples with at least one area of your life and use that as a sample that you can use to spread into other areas of your life wherever you see fit. 

Odds are that these stages will not necessarily be linear, and to be completely transparent, I must say that I myself am not perfect. I am far from it actually, but I think that’s what makes this whole human experience as mesmerizing as it is.  In college I had a football coach that shared a bit of advice that has still stuck with me in my approach to football practice and now into the rest of my life, he told us this:

  • When you were just starting out in football, your effectiveness (abilities as a player) was at a very base level.  If you were to put a percentage on this ability your base level would be 10% of your potential as an athlete/football player. This level being that you are able to run, jump, and tie your cleats.  Now as you progress through the game, maturing physically and mentally. The game becomes more complex and as a matter of fact the speed at which it is played increases significantly.  With so many facets to try and master or improve upon: tackling, techniques, understanding coverage, defensive concepts, blitzes, defensive fronts….. The list goes on and on.  If you were to try and master all of the elements together you would suffer from some serious paralysis by analysis, thus not improving at the rate that you could or should. Instead the coach suggested that we place a process based goal out for our day and practice.  My coach's advice was instead to take one element of the game into every practice that you can try and get 1% better at. 

 Then over a year, through that intentionality, you will be 365% better right?  I know this is total football math but let's leave the calculators out of it and take the lesson for what it is.  I find it very interesting that this  advice applies to almost all other aspects of your life.  In property for example, there are a multitude of possibilities and routes you could use in order to achieve your goal.  Having a scope of vision on the goal alone may end up hurting you in the long run however. You see, if my goal were to have a $2 million dollar house on the hill it would be a very daunting task to try and take that whole goal on head first. Where do I even start right?  It may work for some, and as a matter of fact this may work for you, the reader.  You may be capable and able to accomplish this goal from a 1.0 level of magnification. I myself would most likely not find myself capable of crushing a goal from this point of view.

Now let’s say you were to go and up your magnification to a 2.0 level on your goal.  At this point we get to the processes that exist in order to build your way to your goal fractionally.  In the property example, a process may be as simple as consulting a real estate professional to learn the “ins and outs” of how you can use real estate as a wealth building asset, and not so much as just a simple means to an end or a “home.” 

A major focus of mine this current year is to become less impressed and more involved with what goes on in my day to day life.  I do not mean that in a way that insinuates that anything I do is impressive, but rather I mean that in 2024 I want to spectate less at situations and circumstances within my daily life when they appear.  I aim to turn ‘woe is me’ and ‘I can’t believe that happened’ into ‘hey that is pretty cool, remember when..’ 

Also, another great phrase for reframing processes is: “keep it simple stupid”.  As a last example of this, my goal is to look into what are the positive aspects of my health (both mental and physical). Find the things that make me feel and operate better and literally write these out.  Then once I have a list of positives, I aim to gravitate toward those things on the list of positives.  Steering clear of the things on the opposite side of the coin, the negatives that deter my health and well being.  This is not complex on the base level, but if I were to just have the goal of bettering my mental and physical health I am not sure I would have any bit of a clue how to tackle that task.  

 

 Written by Nate Konecky R-S