Imagine The Fire

I’m really tired of dream big positivity all the time tweets and commentary.

Now hear me out. It’s not because being positive about things is bad, but it’s because it tends to just be empty feel good fluff that really doesn’t do much. In fact, I rather consider it more a detriment to your goal setting than a benefit.

I often see these hopeful tweets going around telling you that you gotta dream big, and you gotta push and visualize your goals ad infinitum, but I’m going to be honest: everything I’ve achieved basically never had a visualization, and dreaming big, while somewhat useful, is hard to actually visualize without using other people’s lives as a metric.

I mean, I had an idea of what I wanted to do, but that’s the thing: I sat down, developed that idea and asked myself where I would be if I didn’t achieve the goal.

That, for me, is far more powerful of a motivator than visualizing the success. The failure of my goals.

A good example is in my personal fitness regime. I don’t go for the jacked as fuck swolemachine look – more a lean frog than a goliath frog. That said, I fully endorse swolemachine aesthetics if it’s what you want to do. Muscletoads are awesome.

Anyway, I basically just aim for a specific level of lean appearance with good muscular definition. It’s nothing amazing, but I look and feel great at that level. It’s about 12-14% fat, I think. Girls like it too, so good shit.

But when I work to maintain it, I don’t really visualize looking lean. I’m already pretty much there.

I visualize what I’d be like if I got fat and unhealthy (again, was once).

That vision of failure basically resets and remotivates me to maintain my health and stay in shape without fail every time, and the reason is that it’s very difficult for me to tolerate being in a position where I objectively know I’m worse off in every way.

It’s god damned horrifying, actually – and that energy from being utterly horrified of being a lard ass keeps my ass lean.

When I look back to major goals of mine, particularly moving to Japan, I actually do remember thinking what would life be like if didn’t go through with the goals or desires I had. The drive to not be that way and to be something better was a far more motivating tool than imagining where I could be in 10 years with success under my belt.

To be honest, I had no idea where I was going to end up when I imagined success – there was a sliver of an idea there, where I can imagine uhh..nice chicks, teaching and living in a Japanese house or something, but ultimately I couldn’t really envision it properly.

It was super easy to envision where I would be if I didn’t do those things though – and that imagining of the fire that was failure was the absolute most powerful way for me to get focused on my goals.

I really don’t think visualizing your goals all day really works, all it does is give you a dream to look at, but with no nightmare to accompany it.

When you know what the nightmare is, you do your absolute fucking hardest to pursue the dream, because you know that the alternative is Freddy Kruger waiting for you…bitch.

Just remember to be reasonable about your goals, too. SMART:

Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, Timely.

Follow the dream that reality can give, so that you can avoid living in the nightmare that you had.