'Are You Settling, Or Doing Your Best?' by scottdclary success motivation
“The tragedy of life is often not in our failure, but rather in our complacency; not in our doing too much, but rather in our doing too little; not in our living above our ability, but rather in our living below our capacities.” – Benjamin E. May
The interesting part, however, is that we have much more to gain from putting in maximal effort. Showing initiative at work is more likely to lead to a pay rise. Spending time with your spouse and kids leads to stronger relationships. Learning a new skill can lead to an entirely new career.We Have an Intense Fear of Failure
between technology and slot machines. Both are built to give us the same short-term hit that keeps us in a self-sabotaging state of mind.Stating the obvious here, but it's relevant. A key reason we don't push ourselves to be the best is that it takes a heck of a lot of effort. I mean real, physical energy – whether it's brain power, time, or bodily resources. It's tiring to be constantly learning and growing, especially if we're not used to it.
Here's the kicker, though. While choosing to give a half-assed effort feels easier and better in the short-term, there are studies to prove the way it hurts us in the long-term. "[eSports is] two clicks into direct competition with someone I don't know. I don't know their background, I don't know their race or color or anything. And that, to me felt beautiful."
"Back then, it was like the world to me. My mom and my dad worked pretty much all day. My mum was a makeup artist, my dad was an electrician. And between them both, they didn't bring home 2000 bucks a month. So I thought I was the richest man on the planet." Not only did this guy decide to make eSports his career – a gutsy move to begin with – but he also decided to switch to a new game that was even more competitive, and that would require even more hours of practice. He was playing the long game.You can hear the full story in his interview – but let's switch gears a little. I was interested to find out Carlos' thoughts on how he approaches becoming the best at a new game.
But our lives don't need to be so drastic, though. To become the best at what you do, you simply find what you're comfortable with and then do more of it. But what if we thought of effort as a continuous process? Cavarretta explained that there's another way to think about effort. We can see it as a repeating loop, like this: effort > performance > pleasure > motivation > effort.