- So this video, it's going live in January
and you know what January means?
It's a new year, it's a new dawn,
and with that of course comes new year's resolutions.
This is the year I'm gonna start a side hustle,
build it up and then quit my job
and go full time in my own business, financially free.
This is the year I'm gonna get in shape.
I'm gonna go to the gym every day, lift weights,
and run my first marathon.
This is the year I'm gonna give up fast food,
change my diet, and lose weight.
At the start of the year each of these four people
sat down and planned their new year's resolutions
and as they did they each started buzzing with excitement
and mentioning how their lives
were gonna be completely transformed but ya know what?
By the time February rolls around,
like 99% of the population,
each of these people will give up on their goals
and so the question is why is that?
And well ya know, as I've shared on this channel before
when I was a teenager I had a life goal.
I remember my final year of high school
announcing to my economics teacher that ya know what,
I'm gonna be a millionaire within 10 years when I'm 28.
My economics teacher just smiled.
"Sure Sarah," he said, "why not?"
And he walked away.
Well, 28 has come and gone and I am happy to say
that I did achieve that dream but I'll tell you now
it almost didn't happen.
In my early 20s like most people I would get up at 8:00 AM,
quickly take a shower, brush my teeth,
scarf down some breakfast,
and then rush off to work each day.
Not only was my job boring but I had a horrible boss
that all of the employees hated
and as I sat in my cramped office
staring out the tiny window I thought to myself
this isn't what I want.
I want to be free.
I want my life to be different.
I want my life to change and so like most people
I sat down and I made a new year's resolution.
I was going to start a side hustle,
turn it into a main hustle, and then quit my job.
So the first day back at work
I set my alarm to go off at 6:00 AM.
I got up, took a shower, brushed my teeth,
ate some breakfast, drank a cup of coffee,
and then worked on my side hustle.
And then when I got home from work at 6:30
I ate some dinner, sat down, and worked on my side hustle.
And for that first week I stayed strong.
I got up at 6:00 AM, worked, and then came home
and continued working on my dream
but the next week things started to slip.
My alarm went off at 6:00 AM and I'd think to myself
I'm tired, there's no point in working if I'm tired
and I hit the snooze button.
And then the next evening when I finally arrived home
from a long day and hard commute
I turned on my laptop and thought ya know,
I've spent all day working
I really don't feel like doing more of it.
I've been working really hard recently,
I deserve a break and so I chose to YouTube instead.
But you know where this is going.
Gradually more and more as the weeks went by
I started to choose YouTube
and the snooze button more and more
until a month went by and you guessed it,
I was back to square one.
And I know I'm not alone.
I'm sure most people watching this video have done this too
but here's the thing.
Sure, that January I did fail to make a change
but eventually I did succeed at achieving my dream
and the reason for that is because I developed one thing
and that is grit.
According to the Cambridge Dictionary to have grit
means you have courage and determination despite difficulty.
It means that you have the mental toughness to pursue a goal
despite there being difficulties along the way.
Because I lacked grit, when I woke up in the morning
and was tired I didn't have the mental toughness
to push through it and get up anyway
and when I came home, bored of doing work
I didn't have the mental toughness
to continue working regardless
and instead chose the easy, fun option of YouTube.
And so this is why I and most people fail
at achieving their new year's resolutions.
It isn't because your goals are unattainable
it's that they lack the one successful trait
that successful people have and that is grit.
Studies have shown that it's not the competitors
with the highest IQ that win the USA National Spelling Bee
it's competitors that had the most grit and determination
to consistently practice.
Unfortunately though
most people are not naturally born with it.
But luckily like most skills in life
you can develop it by making one simple change
to how you live your life.
See, I made a mistake.
The road to victory isn't a straight pathway
it's lined with small wins along the way.
And so instead of saying I'm gonna get up two hours earlier
every morning from here on out I should have said
I'm gonna set my alarm for 30 minutes earlier
until I get consistent at waking up then instead.
Because it's a smaller change it's much easier to achieve
and setting attainable goals is very important
because each time we set a goal science has shown
that our brains become emotionally invested in that goal
as though we had already achieved it,
which sounds good but there's a flip side to that.
It means that if we don't achieve that goal
that it creates an emotional trigger in our brains
that makes us feel like we've lost a valued position
which leads to a lot of other negative feelings;
fear, anxiety, and anguish.
By not achieving our goals we lose something very important
and that is hope.
Over his life
Steve Jobs built a $10,000,000,000 personal net worth
and revolutionized technology with Apple
but it wasn't always this way.
In 1980 Steve launched the Apple III,
a computer that was supposed to revolutionize
the business computer market but instead of doing that
it did the opposite.
Due to main design flaws the computer would heat up,
buzz extremely loudly, and worst of all crash.
Jobs would later go on to say that,
"Apple lost infinite, incalculable amounts of money
"on the Apple III."
But it would only get worse for him
and in 1984 Jobs was ousted from his own company Apple,
the ultimate act of failure and betrayal,
and for most people this would completely stop them
but not Jobs.
When asked about his firing in retrospect Jobs said this.
"Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick.
"Don't lose faith," and that's exactly what hope is.
It's when despite a failure or a setback
you were able to get back up and try again
because you have faith that if you get up again and try
you will learn a little bit more and a little bit more.
Grit isn't when you hope that you will succeed
because of luck grit is when you have hope, faith,
and belief that success is because you got up
again and again and it's this faith, this belief
that has been shown to be the number one factor
that separates high achievers, not intelligence.
So start off by setting your alarm 30 minutes earlier
and when you've achieved that consistently
set it to 45 minutes earlier
and then set it to 60 minutes earlier in the morning
and gradually build it up so that eventually
you prove to yourself that you can reach your final goal.
So this year if you wanna be successful
and achieve real results don't rush to the finish line.
Start with small goals that you can easily achieve
because as you achieve them and build on them
your hope will grow because as you achieve your goals
one by one you will see and prove to yourself
that success isn't because of luck it's because of you.