COMMUNITY: It matters what you do today

Editor's note: Adam Rees is founder of GRIT GYM, a gym based on results, creating a culture and lifestyle of performance, strength, health and freedom to live life on your own terms. Rees attended Wartburg, worked under nationally recognized strength coach Matt McGettigan at ISU and is generally a glutton for information and improvement in all forms.

By Adam Rees, community contributor

A new year has begun. How did your plans go for 2013?

I have a post-it in my pocket right now, one I've had there for the last three years. It's evolved and changed and become more and more clear. Just the way it should.

Why do I carry it in my pocket? Because it has my goals written on it and the more times I'm reminded of them, the more times I choose to win. With those, I see more opportunities to seize and I work harder and smarter the closer I get.

You build to a goal by planning ahead and doing what is necessary to prepare day in and day out. If you want a $1 million, you better put some money away today, even if it's just $1. If you want to be a champion, you better do something today, even if it's just some pushups.

It matters what you do today.

When my athletes and I talk about goal setting, they typically think I'm crazy. The thing about being common is it usually leads to common results. You get close, but fall just a little bit short. Most of us are non-winners. We're not losers, but we also aren't winners. We find a way to win and if we get on a streak we wonder when the “luck” is going to end. In doing so, we find a way to lose in order to prove our inner belief - the one that is scared of not being good enough. This, of course, is a lie.

The truth is “luck” doesn't exist. We make multiple choices every day. There is a choice to win, to not win and to lose.

Years ago I read a study on Harvard MBA students who used monetary gain to track success of goals. Money is concrete and easy to track. When asked “have you set clear, written goals for your future and made plans to accomplish them?” only 3 percent of the class had. Thirteen percent had goals, but not in writing. And 84 percent had no goals at all.

Ten years later, the 13 percent who had goals were earning, on average, twice as much as the 84 percent who had no goals. And the 3 percent with clear, written goals were earning, on average, 10-times as much as the other 97 percent combined.

There's obviously something to be said for getting clear on what you want.

You must plan for success. You have to be crazy enough to believe it's possible if you want to be different from you've ever been before.

Become abnormal and leave the rest of the world behind.

• Contact Rees at Adam@gritgym.com