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"You are where you are today
because you have chosen to be there."
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- Harry Browne
Do you truly understand the underlying reality to Harry Browne’s
insightful quote? Can you perceive that who you are, what you are, where
you are, and the situation you find yourself in, are all a result of
choices you have made? If you are in great shape, it is all a result of
the choices you have made. If you choose to (1) Exercise regularly; (2)
Eat right (limiting the fats, sodium and sugar you consume); (3) Don’t
smoke and (4) Consume a minimum of 3-5 servings of fruit and vegetables
daily, then welcome to a very exclusive club of the top 3% of the
American population.
Unbelievably, only 3 % of all Americans follow the 4 simple principles
to health & fitness listed above. 97% of Americans make the choice to be
less fit and less healthy.
All of the choices you make, in all aspects of your life, lead you to
who, what and where you are and who, what and where you will be.
Hopefully, you have already started the journey along the long, hard,
challenging road to maximizing your potential as a human being.
Hopefully, you have chosen self-development over-self pity. If you
haven’t, don’t self-destruct, because no matter how far you have
traveled down the wrong road…TURN BACK! It is that simple!
Far too many people, people capable of having wonderful, fulfilling
lives, never stop to perform an honest self-assessment, to truly
determine the “real” reason why “everyone and everything is against
them.” They lack the courage to look inside themselves and discover the
flaws within them that result in their own self-destruction. It is
easier for them to blame the boss for their getting fired instead of
doing an honest self-assessment of their job performance. It is easier
for them to blame the credit card companies for their financial ruin,
instead of doing an honest self-assessment of their money management. It
is easier for them to blame their spouse for their divorce instead of
doing an honest self-assessment of the attitude and effort they brought
to their marriage. It is easier for them to blame the police officer for
their DUI instead of doing an honest self –assessment of their
irresponsible drinking.
Without question, all of us, at some time in our lives, choose the
easier road, choose to do what we WANT to do, instead of what we NEED to
do. Unfortunately, if we choose the easier road too many times, we end
up at a destination we don’t want to be. And of course we conveniently
forget the choices we made and can only conclude that it must be someone
else or something else at fault for why we are in such a terrible
situation.
The wise man once said “the definition of insanity is doing the same
thing over and over again and expecting a different result.” If you want
a different result you need to do something different.
The first thing you need to do is an honest self-assessment. This is the
most difficult step for many reasons, but probably the biggest reason is
the stranglehold self-delusion has on you. Self-delusion has reached
epidemic proportions world-wide. (My personal opinion is that
self-delusion is the number one reason for the obesity epidemic in the
U.S.A. Research shows that the majority of Americans overestimate by 40%
the amount of calories they expend daily on physical activity and
underestimate by 40% the amount of calories they consume daily. Do the
math and it will be no surprise to anyone why obesity is spiraling out
of control.) If you continually delude yourself into believing you are
“Near-Perfect” mentally, emotionally, physically, socially,
artistically, professionally and personally, and that your character,
compassion, generosity and honesty are near- perfect, then you have my
apologies…I have wasted your time in sending this to you. Or, if you
believe the above list is a waste of time, unimportant or
irrelevant…again, you have my apologies. Or, if you believe that you and
the situation you are in is hopeless, then please, please, please… READ
ON! You don’t need to get your hopes up. You don’t need to believe in me
or the system I am about to share with you. You just have to DO IT!
For those of you that read all the books I put on my Recommended Reading
List, you will recognize this system as described in “Ben Franklin’s
Autobiography.” This is the same self-development system Ben Franklin
used to become one of the most accomplished, most successful men of all
time.
Begin with your honest self-assessment and put down on paper your
strengths and weaknesses. Next, ask someone who knows you well, someone
can trust, and ask for their help in performing the same exercise. If
their assessment of you is significantly different than yours, try to
discover why. Is self-delusion the reason…or something else? Next, pick
the biggest weakness, the one you think is holding you back from
success, and print it on the top left-hand corner of a 3x5 index card.
Set-up the card with the days of the week and draw a line horizontally
in the middle of the card and make six vertical, evenly-spaced lines in
order to make columns for each day of the week. Label each column at the
top: M, Tu, W, Th, F, Sa, Su. When you finish, it should look like this:
(I will use “procrastination” as an example of a characteristic to work
on):
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Procrastination |
| M |
Tu |
W |
Th |
F |
Sa |
Su |
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Each time you make a positive step toward curing yourself of
“procrastination,” give yourself a “+” above the line, and when you
succumb to procrastination give yourself a “-” below the line. Before
you go to bed each night, total the “+’s” and “-’s”, write the number
on the card in the appropriate day and square and circle it for quick
reference. Review the card each morning and continuously strive for
improvement. You will see improvement day-by-day.
Sunday night, prepare a new card with a different characteristic to work
on. Ben Franklin worked on seven characteristics. After seven weeks he
would begin again on the first of seven and continue on,
week-after-week, month-after-month, year-after-year, relentlessly
striving to perfect all seven. The results of Ben’s relentless drive
made him one of the all-time greatest men who ever lived.
And that, my friend, is exactly what I am looking for… from YOU!
I look forward to seeing you at Fitness By The Bay in Tampa and IFPA
University West in Las Vegas.
- Sincerely,
- Jim Bell, PhDc
- President, IFPA
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