The other morning, I was driving to the gym, it was 5:30 in the morning. And as I was driving down, I came up into a roundabout, and suddenly another car entered the roundabout going pretty quick. I hit the brakes to slow down and found myself on a patch of black ice. Now, to give you some reference, I’ve lived my whole life by the beach. In fact, the coldest place I’ve ever lived is Santa Barbara California. Now, recently, my wife and I moved up to beautiful Bend, Oregon, and we live by the base of the mountain, ’cause we love the mountains and the outdoors, and all it brings to us. So I hit this patch of ice, and I course-correct instantly and immediately to avoid the car.
What it got me thinking was, “Wow, if I wouldn’t have reacted as fast as I reacted, I would’ve hit T-bone right into this car.” And most likely, just would’ve caused damage to the car, maybe some light bumps and bruises on myself and the other driver. But by course-correcting and reacting right away, immediately, I was able to avoid an accident, and both of us went on our merry way, and I had a fantastic workout. But it got me thinking, “How often in my life do I not course-correct as quickly? How long do I stick to something longer than I need to be doing? I’m not agile.” Well, I started looking at my Five to Thrive, as I often do, and I encourage you to do the same. And I saw this in many ways; in my body, in the area of nutrition. I’ve definitely not course-corrected as quickly, ’cause I wanted to try a certain thing. Maybe it’s certain ketogenic diet or intermittent fasting. I have clients that are in these fields, so I definitely wanna try whatever their promoting, or before I promote something to one of coaching clients for example.
So where else? In relationships. How often … I remember formerly, just being newly married, I would beat my head against the wall doing the same thing over and over and over again, thinking what I was doing was the absolute best and why couldn’t my wife, my partner, understand that and just kept doing it, over and over again, rather than course-correcting quickly. Now, in retrospect, hindsight is 2020, as I look back, I was able to realize that what I was doing wasn’t working and course-correct it quickly, I would’ve shortened the gap of misery in the relationship, right, so much quicker, so so much quicker. My poor wife would’ve been a lot happier too.
So other areas, with friendships I’ve seen myself do this. In business, right? How often do we, as high-level achievers, and I know you are if you’re listening to this Daily Growth Hack, how often do we just stick it out because we’re grinders, we’re alphas, we can do this, rather than just course-correcting as simple … as quickly as possible, like I did when I hit the ice.
So I invite you to grab your journal, your Five to Thrive and look in your Five to Thrive and where you’re sticking to something too long when you should just be able to course-correct. Now, when you recognize that, course-correct immediately. Take action. Never leave the scene of a decision or an insight, without taking immediate action. That just further cements that insight into you and allows you to move so much further.
As always, go share this with at least three other people, by simply just passing it on, and having conversations that matter.
One of you reached out to me last week and said, “Jeez, Doug, I wanna share this, I just don’t know what to say.” So here’s the trick, just share it, just forward this link. If you’re watching on video, share the video. If you’re listening to this on, could be Spotify or anywhere that we actually host these Daily Growth Hacks, share the link, forward it on, and then say, “Hey, what do you think about this?” That’s a great way of sharing it. And if you’re one of those people that just got this from a friend, just know that the person that sent you this daily growth hack, cares about you and wants to have conversations that matter, right? And they believe that you have what it takes to have these deeper-level conversations. I know you do.
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