How far away are you from greatness in your life and business? It is closer than you think. First, you have to understand.
Life is going to be hard regardless…
…here is how to frame life to get the most time, money, and joy out of the journey.
Nils van der Peol is a Swedish speed skater who broke the World Record in the 5k and 10k events at the 2022 Olympics. After winning an unprecedented double gold, he posted his “How to skate a 10k” workout journal online.
The journal outlines a robust but balanced regime. Nils would work out five days a week and take two full days off per week. The two days off were intentional to allow his body and mind to recover for another full week of work.
Nils trained 25 hours a week for four years to finish the 10k in 12 minutes and 30 seconds.
What could you accomplish in life if you dedicated 25 hours a week to your passion, craft, or business?
The most impressive part of the training is his commitment and consistency. When you read about his journey, you notice the daily improvement is not detectable. You have to zoom out to month over month and year over year to see the major gains due to his training.
How can we stay committed to what we know works even when we can’t detect improvements?
Most people would have given up after one month because of a feeling of discouragement and disappointment in the lack of progress. Even worse, in the first month, performance probably declined because of the adaptation process and increased fatigue.
The key to mastery is the unwavering commitment to the unending pursuit of greatness. Once you realize there is no one activity, workout, tool, system, hack that will achieve mastery, you can commit to compounding.
You know what to do; you just need to do it consistently over a longer period to capture the abundance that will come.
Your life will be hard either way; you might as well choose the path that will reap the greatness within your soul.
When Nils was asked, How could you sacrifice so much for a gold medal? his answer was…
“I think it’s important to understand that you’re not doing it for a gold medal. Regardless of which life you choose to live, you will sacrifice something; that’s the way it is.
As soon as you go in one direction, you also choose to not go in all other directions at the same time. It’s the basic precondition for going anywhere at all.
But on the path you take, you will experience fantastic things; even though it’s uphill, there will be a great view when you’re at the top, and that’s what makes it worth it, to be on this journey with people you love.”
Nils is right; the only way to guarantee joy, success, happiness, achievement, and minimize regret is to choose the direction for your life. The journey, once committed, will appear redundant, hard, and boring, but the achievement will be worth it.
People will question your commitment because they are blinded by novelty and variety. Novelty and variety are like quicksand; they halt all progress towards achievement.