Don’t Know How to Reach a Fitness Goal? Do This.

I recently had this conversation with a friend who found out I’ve been doing the following, side-by-side:

• Just finished my second, full-length book
• Shoot two videos per week
• Write two articles per week
• Am doing a full-time, 4-year medical program in Chinese medicine
• …and still am relatively sane (relatively being the key word)

The first thing she asked me was:

“How do you even do all this stuff?”

I thought it was kind of funny because there’s nothing special about me.

There’s nothing special about my process.

I just do things a little bit differently.

Originally, when I began studying habit change, it intrigued me because, well, I wanted to change almost everything about my life.

However, when I began studying more successful people, I realized that from the inside, there’s often a very careful, deliberate set of practices that allow a person to achieve multiple things at once.

That’s the goal-achievement process I want to share today.

How to Reach Goals When You Have No Clue How

First – Stop Doing What You See Other People Doing

Picture this.

You see someone who’s just dominating life. They’re fit, they’re happy, they’re successful. They have a great partner, or spouse, or they’re married. They travel. And you wonder, how the hell are they doing it all?

What are they doing that’s different from other people?

When my friend asked me this, it was as simple as one thing. Modeling.

I’m not a creative person. I am creatively so dumb it would shock you. I do not possess that muscle, instinct or skill. That ability is something that I have to work hard to get.

What I’m good at is modeling other successful people and what they’ve already done.

When I first got into fitness 10 years ago, I didn’t know what I was doing. I didn’t know how often to eat.

It took me four years to realize that if I wanted to gain muscle, going to the gym every day wasn’t going to do it. I had to actually eat more. I had to track my calories to overeat, because how much I was currently eating wasn’t going to help me reach that goal.

It took me four years to realize that, and another three years to get visible results of a 20-pound weight gain. I didn’t know any of the critical information to help me reach that goal.

I would go to the gym and do a couple of arm exercises, do some squats and some lunges, and maybe some deadlifts.

I literally didn’t know what to do to get results until I started modeling guys that got the results I wanted.

One important thing that I learned was that they ate more than I was eating. A lot more.

They deliberately would time when they ate to make sure they were eating enough calories, because it’s hard to eat a lot of calories in just 2-3 meals.

For years I was doing what I thought would get me results, rather than modeling it in the case studies that it clearly was already working for.

Now that’s interesting.

Surprisingly, it’s often that simple.

How to Achieve 10/10 Success in Other Aspects of Life Too (With Habits)

That’s my fitness story.

But while I was transforming how I looked, I also transformed how I worked, how I traveled, and how I was in my personal relationships.

I also wrote two full-length books before 30, and to be honest, I didn’t know how to write one when I started.

I didn’t know how to launch a book. I didn’t know how to get myself published, how to have a cover created or have an audiobook.

I didn’t have the slightest clue about the other things that go into book launching, like finding professional designers and editors. But I found someone who did.

Yes, I Know This Sounds Shocking…

I simply asked a friend with his own book how he did it – and modeled him. I didn’t reinvent the wheel.

I found someone with a nice book cover that was self-published, and asked them how they did it.

I found someone who had a professional looking layout, and asked them how they got it.

I asked a friend who was in a local band about audiobooks and audio recording, and he referred me to a professional studio in New York to record my audio book.

Anything you want can be found, and achieved, by modeling.

Cutting Through the Excuses – And Reaching Your Fitness Goals

When I stopped making excuses, modeled what worked, and tracked daily habits.

What I’m saying is that there is no excuse for not knowing how to do something.

Ultimately, it’s all about modeling other people that have done what you want to do. Most of the time, unless you’re following a very unconventional path in your life, it’s easy to find someone to model.

Relationships, health, finances, success, spirituality. Whatever it is, someone has done – can you find out who?

Model the best to reverse engineer their daily habits. It’s the same thing with great relationships. Find someone who has a crappy one and do the opposite. Find a couple that doesn’t listen to each other, and run in the opposite direction.

Or find a couple with two people that support and praise one another – and figure out what their habits are on a daily basis.

There are really only two questions when you think about it:

Question #1: Who has done what I want to do?

Question #2: What are their daily habits?

Here’s Your “Master the Day” Tiny, Daily Habit Today

Why some people are successful and others are not? Why do some people get the best circumstances in life, and yet they don’t succeed?

Why do some people get the worst circumstances, and then they go on to be incredible human beings? I really think about that, and I try to consciously choose who I model.

There is no excuse for not knowing what to do to get whatever it is you want in life.

Find someone who has what you want.

Model them.

Find their daily habits.

Track your daily habits.

Rinse and repeat.

Achieve greatness.

-Alex

 Thoughts on this? Leave a comment below.