The Winning Mindset

The challenges of life will never stop. They only get harder and harder as you get closer and closer to what you want. We are constantly being tested. Life can throw us off course from time to time, and it seems like we are in a constant battle with ourselves; because that is the truth. As soon as I feel like I am on top of the world, something happens and I get setback. I get back up again and setback again. It felt like a never-ending pattern. But I had something in me that kept me moving forward, I believed all these setbacks were to make the comeback that much better!

It took me a while to figure out what I wanted to do after getting laid off my job from Parker. But once I did figure it out, I was willing to do whatever it takes to make the money to invest into it. And just when I started saving a lot of money by working from home, my phone stopped turning on. That same night I bought a new phone because I had been having trouble with my phone for the last couple of weeks, I knew I needed to upgrade. It said it needed about 2 weeks to arrive. So in the meantime, I tried using my dad’s phone for work, but it just was not working. I had no option but to sit back and wait for it.

During that time, I did so much research, that I found another business I wanted to learn and thankfully I had the money to invest into it with my last penny. Also, I was not seeing any more results from working out at home and it became very frustrating because of all the hard work I was putting into it. I realized that until I had my Gorilla Bow, there was no progress to be made with the bands and gallons I had right now.

Just the other day, I went outside for a shoulders workout with the bands, and a storm had started. The rain was pouring hard and I easily lost motivation because I wasn’t getting in a good workout. The good news was that I had gotten my phone that day and immediately resumed work. During work, I thought of how it is the little things in life that mean the most. Something as small as not having a good workout meant something to me. Now that the gyms were open, I believed I had to change my cycle.

My focus was to stay at home, workout with the gorilla bow and get shredded during the summer. But now my thought on that had changed. I decided to get back in the gym and bulk up. That little setback made me realize that it was time for a super comeback. I had to stay focused, and for me to stay focused I had to look and feel my best.

When people ask me what does bodybuilding mean to me, this is my answer: My body is a representation of all the challenges I had overcome, and how with every challenge I grew stronger, wiser, and better than before. Right now I was in the middle, and my goal was to be stronger and better than before. It was time to let the official journey of all my goals begin…

The next day I laid out my exact plan for the next 4 months, printed them out, and posted them on my bedroom door so I could see them first thing every morning and throughout the day. We are all attracted to certain things in certain ways. We can like the same thing, but understand it differently. Or we can understand it the same way, but perceive it differently. We have 3 different sensors: Auditory, Kinesthetic, and Visual. Which means someone could understand something better by listening, where as another person could understand it better if they saw it, lived it, or printed out their goals rather than saying their goals out loud. Others are Kinesthetic, which means they can interpret things better by experiencing it first hand, to have the feeling of achieving that goal by taking action without a reminder like on your wall.

I am clearly a very visual person. I am a writer after all, and as a writer I always write my outcomes and that is how I get started on my goals. After seeing the plan in front of me, it was time for me to estimate what my monthly expenses were going to be. You cannot be afraid to take the risk of investing money into your goals. There is always going to be a risk to take. Sometimes you may not realize it, but the very thing that you do not care as much for could cost hundreds if not thousands more than investing into what you really want. The thing is, what you really want usually has the full price right in front of you, which can be overwhelming. Whereas the other thing may not have an investment like that at first, but as time goes by it turns out to be much more expensive.

I am going to give you a perfect example of what I mean. When I got the engineering job in Jacksonville, my parents and I went shopping to get me ready to move there. Spending money on a thing or two didn’t matter, but as things added up it was a couple thousand dollars. That is not including rent and the low pay that I was receiving there. I compare that to me investing right away into something for about a thousand dollars. I see it, literally right in front of me on the computer, “$1000.” And you know how my mind works? There is always going to be money. I’m not afraid of investing into something I believe in. As long as you have money and work hard, you can do anything you want. There is so much opportunity in America, that is the way I see it. But remember: whatever you invest into, of course you must be so dedicated to succeed and put in all your effort, go all in!

I had a lot of expenses to cover. Most the expenses I could dodge if I wanted to, but they were important for my goals. Such as investing in certain courses to learn and begin building a brand, and a couple hundred dollars on gym supplements. All I knew was that right now I had to hustle, I had to work hard and make as much side money as possible so I could come out on top in the end. I was living with my parents, but I was not going to sit back and let them take care of me. I wanted to take care of myself, so that I could later take care of them.

Everything that happens in your life, happens for a reason. Everyone that comes and goes in your life, comes and goes for a reason. We live, we learn, we become. That is why every time I get setback, I appreciate it. I own it. I learn from it. And I rise stronger every time.

Understand: When you get setback, the best way to handle it is to ask yourself the right questions. When I get setback, I ask myself, “What’s next?” When I fall behind on a given task, I ask myself, “How can I organize my schedule to put more time into this?” But here is one thing I never do: I never doubt myself and my ability to succeed!

It all starts with your belief system, and if you don’t believe in yourself then you are less likely to be asking yourself the right questions! Your belief in yourself is what creates a mindset for success, thus owning the moment and turning a negative into a positive. You understand that the challenges are part of the process for you to fulfill your destiny. You understand that the tough times are what either make you or break you. You understand that as long as you have a mindset for success, you will intuitively want to challenge yourself and push yourself past your limits. You will want to achieve greater things in life day by day and year after year.