You don’t become a champion sitting on the sidelines of your life.
You gotta get in the game. You gotta get your boots dirty. You gotta bulletproof your work ethic and challenge yourself to do that thing you don’t wanna do. You gotta get your mind right and get busy.
Do your laps. Do them again. Fix your mistakes. Streamline your process. Elevate your effort each day. Be better today than you were yesterday. Dig deep. Refuse to settle.
We all have 24 hours a day. Twenty four.
What’re you doing with yours? Snapchat? Funny videos? Netflix? TV? Facebook? Are you entertaining yourself to death?
Think about that for a minute.
Are you entertaining yourself to death?
The digital age explosion means there’s endless stimulation available to you. Glue your eyes to the screen 24/7 and you still won’t catch up on everything out there. There’ll always be a new show, game, or app enticing you to check it out for “5 minutes.”
Here’s the thing, though: It’s never just “5 minutes.” It’s never just a quick peek. It’s often hours and hours bingeing on episodes, trying to beat your best score, or checking out all the content on the app.
What if you funnelled all those hours into your dream?
What if you focused on your goals and crushed the resistance so you could start your book, blog, podcast, or side hustle?
What would your life look like then?
I’m not saying you should never kick back and watch a good show, play a cool game, or check out a killer app.
I’m saying, do you have to sacrifice your vision for your entertainment?
Do you have to sacrifice your gifts to enjoy someone else’s gifts? Do you have to sacrifice your growth and evolution for your comfort and stasis?
Every champion who dominates the game works to be the best.
They wake up early. They switch off their phones. They unplug their TVs. They cut out everything that doesn’t grow them, challenge them, and catapult them forward.
They get themselves to the pool, the court, the ring, the track, and the gym. They sacrifice their comfort for countless drills, laps, games, and matches. They fight to endure the pain, the tears, the screaming muscles and joints.
They fight to vault ahead to the top, to be so good they’re simply the best, to crush the pull of giving up, giving in, and never making it to the peak. They fight to be champions because they know that nobody’s gonna hand it to them.
They fight to put in the hours to become faster, tougher, stronger, greater. They fight to win and keep winning. Every single day.
What’re you fighting for? What’re you leaving behind?
Are you just consuming, or are you living and dreaming and making?
Are you gorging yourself on fluff and entertainment, or are you streamlining your diet so you can go for gold?
Are you sitting on the sidelines, or are you getting in the game to dominate it?
Not everyone’s gonna fight to be a champion.
Some people are gonna sacrifice their dreams and potential to watch other people live their dreams and fulfil their potential.
Some people are gonna fade into black when they could’ve burst onto the scene in flaming colour and brilliance.
Some people are gonna die without ever knowing what they were capable of and meant to do with their gifts.
Don’t be one of those people.
You can show up or give in, but you can’t do both. You can be a champion or a spectator, but you can’t be both. You can get in the game or watch the game, but you can’t do both. You can train to be the best or you can just watch the best, but you can’t do both.
And you can choose to evolve now or remain as you are, but know that it is a choice and you are the one responsible for making it.
What worked for them might not work for you, but guess what, you won’t find out lazing on the couch and gorging on social media.
You’ll only find out by getting up, putting in the hours, and getting better every day. You’ll only find out by discovering your rocket fuel and blasting off into the stratosphere when you do the work.
Don’t tell me about the reasons why you can’t or they won’t let you or it’s just not feasible. Don’t tell me about the double digits in your bank account and the mountains in your horizon. Don’t tell me about not having the time or energy to get in the arena and face down your lions.
Tell me about getting up early in the morning before anyone can distract you. Tell me about deleting the apps eating all your time and energy so you can focus on what you need to do. Tell me about surrounding yourself with go-getters doing big things and challenging you to do the same.
Tell me about unplugging your TV and writing, painting, coding, designing, or creating with the extra 20 hours a week. Tell me about going so hard and so deep that you don’t even recognise yourself in the mirror.
Tell me about waking up 6 months from now and being so far ahead that it blows your mind. Tell me about doing one more round when you’re ready to hang up your boots and exit the game.
Don’t tell me what you can’t do.
Tell me what you can do, what you will do, what you are doing to vault ahead and crush your goals and make big things happen.
Because it’s not about you giving your excuses power over your vision and dreams. It’s not about you living in the graveyard of your comfort zone and wondering why nothing around you is growing. It’s not about you indulging yourself in endless, mindless entertainment and burying your dreams, gifts, and talents in the grave of mediocre.
It’s about you going for your visions and dreams even when your excuses pop up.
It’s about you training yourself to live in your genius zone because that’s where you flourish and evolve and create on your leading edge.
It’s about growing your strong and refusing to give in to feeling lazy, being negative, or wasting your time. It’s about you choosing growth over comfort, grit over crippling indulgence, and endurance over apathy.
Don’t be like everyone else. Don’t give in to your excuses. Don’t let the world tell you what you can or cannot do.
Show up.
Put in the hours of focused, consistent, and streamlined effort to be, do, and live your best.
Get off the sidelines and become the champion who dominates the game.
If not now, when?
Otiti, thanks for this wonderfully candid and motivating piece. Online distraction is real!!
Hiiiiii, Momma! Yes, we gotta tame the beast or it’ll eat us whole. Ain’t nobody got time for that!