They say that 90% of success is just showing up — which I believe is true — it just isn’t the full story.

The problem with deciding that you’re going to “just show up” is the mentality that comes along with it. Just showing up will eventually boil down to “good enough”.

And showing up and doing “good enough” will get you results that are exactly that — good enough. But I know you want better than that.

For a lot of the things we do in life, good enough is fine. But we all have a few specific areas in life where we want to be exceptional.

This is where the difference comes in. Over the course of years there will be a massive difference between the guy who aims for good enough and the guy who aims to continuously progress towards excellence.

This is something that you can apply to anything. Of course there’s health, fitness, training, and all of that — but it’s even more important to apply this to other areas of life.

Make the decision

I believe that people are different and we need to find the best way for us to work.

You could say that “how you do one thing is how you do everything” is the way to go, and to force yourself into the habit of pursuing excellence in everything you do. If that’s you then that’s fine, but you might end up giving yourself perfectionism on the way.

But you could also say that you have to identify the things that are most important and pursue those, but in doing that you might end up diluting down your main goals into the “good enough” category like everything else.

Fortunately I think there’s a middle ground that gives us the best of both, but it comes with a big change that us as men have to face one day.

And the solution is to simplify everything about your life.

Pick the battles that are most important, and cut the rest.

This way, the most important things become the “how you do one thing is how you do everything”, since that’s all you’re focused on.

I’m saying this because it’s a reality that I came across a few years ago when I moved out of my hometown and finally learned to grow up.

There comes a point where you can take one of two paths.

Path one is to relax. To accept working the job and having the path of life kind of decided for you. Things will come up that are outside of your control but you accept that this can happen.

The positive side is that you can have more fun. You learn to ignore the little stresses and keep going with the path you’ve taken.

The other path is to take life more seriously. To pick a few things that matter a lot to you and to pursue them relentlessly until you hit your goals.

This means sacrifice. This means putting your head down and working on something even when you don’t want to — but on the other side is more control and a life that’s more rewarding.

A lot of guys will start out with the idea of taking path 2, but end up giving up on it when they realize how difficult it actually is. You can’t “just show up” and make that path work.

The worst place you can be is stuck in the middle. I say this out of experience so I’m right there with you.

You spend your time “working” on something but not fully committing. Maybe you’re deciding what’s the best thing to pursue or maybe you’re struggling to master yourself and put your goals above short term desires that waste time.

Now all of that doesn’t have much to do with the overall point here, but I wanted to address it because it matters a lot. If you want to be exceptional, you have to make the decision and fully commit.

Pick your battles

So you’ve committed, the next thing is to pick your battles. The good news here is that there aren’t that many battles to choose, you just have to figure out how you’re going to fight them.

Health, wealth, relationships, happiness. Simple.

These are your “how you do one thing is how you do everything” battles, because everything else you’re going to cut out.

When it comes to health, commit to becoming the strongest, healthiest, most viable version of yourself.

When it comes to wealth, pick the thing that you’re going to commit to that will bring you the level of wealth that you want. It doesn’t matter what you pick, people have become millionaires in everything.

Every man needs a mission, and these two are your main missions. These aren’t about enjoyment. These are about committing to a process and sticking to it.

Relationships and happiness will either come from your commitment to health and wealth — from people and hobbies you’ve had from the beginning — or you’ll meet people and find happiness in the process as a whole.

Routine with intention

The final piece is to put together your routine and to make sure that you pursue that routine with the intention of hitting your goals every single day.

This is where you separate yourself from the people who are “just showing up”. You separate yourself from the people who haven’t committed to life the same way you have.

You put together your diet, your workout routine, set aside time to work on your wealth goal every day.

And while there will be days that you do have to “just show up”, the point is to set a higher standard for yourself.

You don’t have to develop perfectionism by trying to be perfect from day 1 — look at it more like progressive overload.

Show up to be better than the day before.

• Make sure you’re progressing on your lifts
• Come up with better ideas
• Go deeper on the ideas you have
• Follow your diet even better than yesterday

The way you avoid giving yourself crippling perfectionism, but also avoid becoming “good enough” is by being aware of the middle ground.

Just set out to be better than yesterday, and over the course of years you’ll find the level of excellence you were after.

Just a little 2 cents on something that’s been on my mind. Also a reminder to myself. Best of luck.

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