Let’s say you’ve been hitting the gym, you’ve been watching your diet, you’ve upgraded your wardrobe, you’ve been asked to start competing in your martial art by your coach because of your skill, you’re making more money than ever, you’re expanding your mind and ways of thinking through great books, you’re attracting plenty of just the type of woman you want, and all and all things are going better than they ever have before. Little do you know but you’re in one of the most dangerous situations to be in.
Really this is the first great test when you start striving everyday to be the best that you can be. It’s when the clouds has disappeared and you think that it’s okay to finally coast. After all you deserve it right? You’ve put in all this work, don’t you deserve to enjoy the fruits of your labors and relax a little bit? The answer is a resounding “NO” if you want to stay on the path that you’re on. Don’t get me wrong obviously there are times to relax in your life and times to enjoy the fruits of your labor (otherwise what’d be the point) but you are never, ever out of the game.
Keep The Pedal To The Metal
This is the time to kick it into the next gear and become even more. You can enjoy the fruits of your labor and relax without coasting or hitting the breaks. This world offers no time to coast or hit the breaks. Again not saying you can never enjoy yourself, relax, or enjoy the fruits of the labor just that you can never allow yourself to get weak, fat, and an easy target. You must always keep things moving forward and developing. If you’re standing still then you’re regressing, only forward movement is improvement. You have to always keep your eyes open and keep at it.
Maybe in the next world we’ll be able to relax completely. Or maybe not, maybe this world is just a warm up to the horrors of the next, I don’t know. But I do know that in this world you need to always keep the line and put in the work day in and day out. It’s great when things start to go your way and when the hard work that you put in starts to pay off. But don’t let that make you go to sleep and pretend like you’ve “made it” (whatever that means) and can now slack off and not worry about reality. That day never comes. Enjoy the feast, enjoy your friends, women, life, but never forget that there are wolves out there and they will eventually come.
It’s Never Over
So many people are told lies when they are young that handicap them throughout life. One of these is that hard work isn’t always going to be a part of life. Being the best that you can be and becoming a superman are things that you have to engage with daily. It doesn’t matter what you did last year or yesterday what matters is what you’re doing today right now. It’s true that nothing succeeds like success but nothing destroys like success as well, that is if you let it.
You don’t want to be the proverbial guy who makes it “big” to only lose it all because he began to coast and take things for granted. You always have to be smart and keep your wits about you. Just because you’ve made it to the throne doesn’t mean that you can relax, if anything you’ll have to develop in ways you never thought that you would have before. Life is about constant growth, never stagnating. Progress is great but there is always a never level and we’ll never reach that “final level” because there isn’t one there.
So keep moving, fighting, working, growing, learning, adapting, and becoming both wiser and stronger day to day. This is your mission and your function, to fail at either is to fail yourself. So keep the saw sharp and your eyes peeled when enjoying the fruits of your labor, because you never know what’s going to be around the corner (but don’t drive yourself crazy either).
If you have any questions you would like to see answered in a future post send them to me at charlessledge001 (at) gmail (dot) com. If you found value in this post then I would encourage you to share this site with someone who may need it as well as check out my books here. I appreciate it.
-Charles Sledge
