When it comes to personal development, most guys are not getting what they want out of life. Most guys quietly accept that this is just how life is and resign themselves to a life of average.

If you’re one of those guys that’s cool, but chances are if you’re OK with average you’re not reading this. You’re probably off watching a football game somewhere distracting yourself from your reality. Since you’re here reading I’m going to assume that you’ve probably got a few areas where maybe you’re not getting the results you want.

Maybe you’ve been thinking about making a change but could never get past that first step.

Maybe you’ve made changes in the past only to relapse back into bad habits.

Maybe you’re on the path but you feel like you’re spinning your wheels and not moving forward.

Maybe you’re far along on your path but you just can’t put all the pieces together.

I get it, I’ve been in every one of those places at some point in time

No matter where you are on your path I guarantee I’ve been in a worse place then you. If you could see what a lazy, drug-addled, disgrace I was at 20 I doubt you’d even be reading my blog right now. And I won’t lie to you, my path to positivity was a long one. The truth is it took me until close to 30 to put all the pieces together.

Before that it was get momentum and relapse. Or fail repeatedly at business. Or be exceptional in some areas like with women but still be working a job I hated. Self-improvement on all levels is not easy, especially when you’re dropped into the world without a playbook. Maybe you grew up without a father like I did or maybe your dad just didn’t have the answers.

Whatever the case may be I want to give you the keys that I used to get me to where I’m living the life that I want. Now that’s not to say that I’m the best with women or in business or in the gym but I’m at a point where I feel I’ve got my life in order and that I’ve got a few things that might help tighten up your game and hopefully take some years off your learning curve.

Here are the key factors that I think are stopping you from getting the results you want in life:

1) Trying To Sprint Your Way To Success

Success is a marathon not a sprint. It means putting in work every single day for a long time. It’s not getting all hyped up on something, throwing a ton of effort at it for a few weeks and then quitting when you lose motivation.

In every major area from business to fitness to dating, you’re looking at a 3 – 6 year process to mastery. And that’s only if you’re following the program and putting in effort every single day.

It’s not about going to the gym for two weeks and killing yourself because working out is your New Years’ resolution. It’s about doing the same boring ass routine for the next 3 to 4 years, way beyond the point of initial momentum that got you started. Motivation is not enough, you need dedication to get results. Anybody can get motivated for a few days, it’s the guy who keeps at it no matter what who crosses the finish line.

Now there’s nothing wrong with seeking out motivation, being motivated is great, but motivation is a luxury. It’s taking care of business regardless of how you feel that makes the difference. Because the reality is, no matter how good you are at state management, some days you just don’t want to do work. Or you don’t want to go the gym. Or you don’t want to do your chores. But when you’re dedicated, you do it anyway.

Results happen from chugging along doing boring sh*t day in and day out, just like a marathon. That’s why, just like a marathon, you need to pace yourself because you’re in it for the long haul. You just keep showing up every day and grinding it out.

Then when you hit that four or five year mark, that’s when you start getting paid in compound interest.

That’s the point where your blog starts paying you in passive income.

That’s the point where you can do six figures in sales off just existing clients and referrals.

That’s the point where you don’t even need motivation because you’re running on autopilot.

That’s the point where it actually becomes harder to take a day off then it is to slack off.

2) Expecting Extraordinary Results From Ordinary Efforts

The ordinary guy doesn’t get the results he wants because he puts in ordinary effort. If you want an extraordinary business or an extraordinary body, you need to put in extraordinary effort. Sounds obvious right? Yet most guys don’t put in that extra effort.

My theory is that most guys don’t know actually what extraordinary effort looks like. They think they’re working hard when in actuality they’re not. I didn’t know what hard work was until I started putting in 10 hours a day selling and another 6 working on my own business. And just to let you know, that’s not even 100%.

100% is 18 hours a day, just enough time to sh*t, shower, shave and sleep. If you want to get hired as an investment banker, those are the kind of hours expected of you. Now I’m not telling you to work 18 hours a day, I just want you to know what 100% really is.

That means that 9 hours a day you’re working on your business is 50% of what you’re capable of. If that’s enough and you’re getting results – awesome. But if it’s not then you need to step your work game up. And I’m talking about actual work, not reading about your industry or watching youtube videos or networking, that sh*t is entertainment.

If you’re running a location-based service business and the results aren’t coming in you have to be honest about how many hours you’re working and about how bad you want it. If 9 hours isn’t enough try 10, or 12, or 14 hours and see what happens. If 200 cold calls a day isn’t enough, try 400 or 600 calls a day and I guarantee you get results.

Take any area you’re struggling in and I would bet money you’re putting in ordinary effort. You can’t just go on a few dates and expect to be good with women. You can’t just spend a few months in the gym and expect to put on 20 lbs. If you’re serious about success, take what the average guy does and double it.

With that said, if the effort to reward isn’t worth it, there’s no shame in lowering your goals. What you can’t do though is complain about not being successful when you’re not giving 100%.

3) Unrealistic Expectations And Inaccurate Thinking

Unrealistic expectations have cost me more time and money then anything else in my life. When I crawled my way out of a deep depression at 20, I did so with a giant binder (this was before smart phones) of hundreds of unrealistic goals and strategies on incredibly unrealistic timelines. It looked something like this:

Needless to say I accomplished none of the things in that binder, the only thing I accomplished was beating myself up for being a failure. The good thing about failing though, is you learn what doesn’t work. The things I have today are a direct result of learning from those experiences.

The most important thing I learned was that no amount of hard work or motivation will make up for inaccurate thinking. You need to approach your goals with a clear head and have a detailed, linear process for achieving them. Every major decision you make needs to go through a rigorous, reality check.

Using a new business venture as an example, here are just a few of the questions you should be asking yourself:

• Is this possible?
• Who’s excelled at this and how can I model them?
• How much money does the best guy in the industry make?
• How much money does the average guy make?
• What’s the timeline for success?
• How many hours are required per day to make this happen?
• Do I have the skillset to make this happen or is this outside of my limitations?
• What are my odds of success?
• Am I passionate about the industry?
• What’s the worst case scenario, will this put me in debt?
• Is this worth the opportunity cost of not pursuing something else?
• What’s my exit plan?

For me I know that playing fullback in the NFL is outside of my limitations. Being a billionaire tech entrepreneur is outside of my limitations. But a results-based personal development business – that I can do. Not only is that within my limitations but it caters to my skillset.

Here are some  realistic expectations for your yearly goals: 10 lbs. of muscle a year, 10 new girls in your league, $20,000 in extra income. This is stuff within your reality if you want it. Maybe it doesn’t sound exciting to you right now and I get it, patience is not one of my virtues either. But five years from now that’s 50 lbs. of muscle, a 50 girl kill count and $100,000 a year in extra income – those are serious results.

One thing to remember though is to keep your priorities in check. Wealth, health, lifestyle and relationships – in that order. Don’t f*ck up like I did and waste years in your prime chasing women. That time cost me at least 3 years in a job I hated and an untold amount of money. I can’t pay my rent with girls I f*cked in 2008 but had I chased paper as priority # 1, I could still be making bank off of what I did five years ago. Don’t do what I did.

4) Not Knowing The Result You Really Want

At the end of the day, whether you know it or not, the result you’re chasing is happiness.

Happiness is what we’re doing all this sh*t for, the girls, the money, the business, it’s all to feel good.

The vast majority of guys don’t get the result the want because they don’t know what they want. You, me and everyone else only wants one thing in life: consistent happiness. The money, the clothes, the body, these are all means to an end. The end game is consistent happiness.

Women and money don’t make you happier, they just make it easier for you allow yourself to generate a state of happiness. At the end of the day, you can’t control everything that happens to you but you can always control how you feel about things.

The truth is you don’t need money and women and power to be happy, instead you just choose to attach your happiness to these external objects. The happiest man in the world, as measured by electroencephalography (EEG), is Matthieu Richard, a 70 year old Buddhist monk who hasn’t seen a vagina since he came out of one. That’s because instead of chasing tail for the past 45 years, he’s been deliberately cultivating the state of happiness.

If you only allow yourself to be happy when you achieve some far off goal, you’re going to be a very unhappy guy. Yet that’s what so many guys who are hardcore into self-improvement do, I know because I used to be one of them. Guys don’t make drastic changes in their lives because they like who they are. Instead most guys who get serious about self-improvement are coming from a place of self-hatred, I know I was.

I lived for years on the toxic fuel of negative motivation, whipping and kicking myself into achieving my goals. Now it’s true that I was succesful in a lot of what I want but at the cost of my piece of mind. No external goal is worth living life in a perpetual state of rage, anxiety and neuroses.

Not only that but by getting yourself accustomed to negative motivation it means you won’t even enjoy your successes. You’ll just move on to the next thing on your list of unattainable perfection. Success is not worth it if you can’t learn to enjoy the journey.

Instead, you have to learn to congratulate yourself on tiny victories and reframe failure as feedback. You have to learn how to be happy as you are and look at your achievements as bonuses. You can’t beat yourself up every time you fail at something. You have to learn how to talk to yourself like a good friend. You are the story you tell yourself and if your story is that you’re worthless, no amount of external success will make you happy.

Happiness is the only metric that counts. Your happiness is the real result you want, so make sure you’re pursuing things that make you happy. If that means you have to change all your goals then do it, as long as consistent happiness is your number 1 priority in life, you’ll always be on the right path.

Conclusion

Set realistic goals, grind it out, enjoy the journey and go get what’s yours!