During a conversation with my personal trainer some time ago, we were discussing my objectives on body shape.
There’s a science, a specific methodology, a “modus operandi” to the successful attainment of every outcome and there’s no better example than shaping your physique.
The Arnold Schwarzenegger type bodybuilder has a very different MO to the lean yet ripped athlete.
Dickie, my trainer, uttered some words I didn’t like the sound of.
“You’ve got to drop long distance running”.
Now I love my running. It’d been a consistent part of my life since training for the New York marathon back in ’05.
Mr. Grumpy’s bottom lip began to quaver.
Much to my disgust, Dickie was spot on and he made his point well by drawing a comparison between the physique of British long distance runner Mo Farah with that of the Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt.
My objective was to have good upper body muscular definition tailoring down in a “v” shape like Bolt and yet outside of my work in the gym with Dickie, I was training for a body like Farah.
In other words, my objective and my behaviour were not aligned.
New results can’t come from old habits.
Running long distances served me well when my objective was to maintain the dramatic weight loss I’d achieved in 2004, continue to improve my fitness and successfully complete a marathon.
But it was not serving me well in terms of my objective anymore.
Hardly rocket science is it? And yet I was blind to it.
Now I’m a smart guy, you’d have thought I’d have worked it out for myself.
But that’s not how it works.
It’s all about awareness.
You can’t manage or improve what you’re not aware of.
I can categorically guarantee if you’re not getting the results you want in your business, it’s because of your lack of awareness. If you’re not getting the results you want in your bank account, it’s because of your lack of awareness and if you’re not getting the results you’d like in your relationships, it’s because of your lack of awareness.
Your business and the quality of life it generates, cannot outgrow the quality of thinking you bring to it – and what determines the quality of your thinking is your level of awareness.
You see, your awareness isn’t raised by learning new information. It’s not about grasping ideas intellectually. That’s why there’s no correlation between membership of Mensa and outstanding success in life.
Stay with me here, because if you grasp this, it’ll change your life forever.
If you’re going to improve any result in your life, you’ve got to bring change to the immediate cause of any given effect.
Results are effects. They have ancestry.
The immediate cause of the effect we call results is behaviour. Change of behaviour equals change of result.
Simple, no?
Of course it is. But that’s not the end of it.
If every effect has a cause, something must be driving behaviour.
And it is. It’s called a belief system. And it doesn’t get changed by the amount of information you know.
Most of the time you’re not even aware of the belief driving your behaviour, you’re just aware of the result, in the same way I wasn’t conscious of how long distance running wasn’t serving me in regard to my desired outcome.
It’s all about awareness.
Christian Simpson is the UK’s leading coach and mentor to business owners and entrepreneurs. For COMPLIMENTARY ACCESS to tried, tested and proven entrepreneurial success strategies, click here
