Becoming the master of yourself seems like a pretty straight forward thing. You're just in charge of you, right?
Well, it may sound simple but it isn't easy. It's way too easy for us to fall victim to ourselves. Anger, laziness, porn, etc., these are just a few of the things that we as men will struggle with at one point or the other. The impulses to engage in one of these vices are seem almost too hard to control at times and then afterward we try to justify our actions by telling ourselves that it was either no big or someone else's fault. We know it's a lie. We know it's a big deal and that we have no one else to blame but ourselves. That's what makes it hard. Facing our own hard truths is a battle that we rarely win without inflicting a casualty. That casualty is usually our ego. As men our pride is our number one possession. It's what allows us to carry ourselves with our chin up and our chest out. Additionally, many of us were raised in a way that we were to never allow our honor to be insulted by another, so what makes it okay for us to insult it ourselves? I'm going to let you in on something that I had to learn the hard way. Your ego is the villain.
Stand up straight. Walk tall. Have a firm handshake. Look them in the eye.
We've all hear those things told to us by the men who came before us. What they didn't tell us is that behind the scenes there is a mindset that enables you to do those things naturally without having to think about them. So how do we get that mindset? A blade does't grow naturally in nature. It has to be formed by a hammer and a flame. In this particular instance, you have to be that hammer and the flame is your desire to lead an honorable life.
So where should you start?
The first place to look to find the source of every single problem in your life is the mirror. Yeah, you read that right. It's your fault. The truth hurts your ego. You have to face that demon. You have to be willing to admit to yourself that you could have done something differently. If you plant your flag on that mountain of self righteousness you will never grow and you will never see your own mistakes.
So, now you've faced the hard truth about yourself. It sucks, I know. But now you can focus on the next step.
There is absolutely nothing that you can get better at doing without doing it repeatedly. And that's what makes it hard, but you have to ask yourself is what you are trying to do worth it? You're not gonna get out of it easy. There are no short cuts. I had my pregnant wife and kids living in a motel room a decade ago. No one helped me out of it. I had to pull my head out of my ass and make it work. It took me ten years of trying and failing to get where I am today and I'm no where near done growing and learning. Y
Most people end up quitting as soon as something gets hard or when they lose the motivation. That's when discipline takes over. To actually do the work regardless of it you're motivated or not. Sticking it out on those day's when it feels like the world is on your shoulders and you just want to stop and take a breather. That's weakness talking. And you're not weak. You're human. But you're also a man. Men don't quit when it gets hard. Men harden up, take it on the chin and keep pushing. That's discipline.
There are no easy roads to take to become more disciplined. It only comes with doing it over and over until it gets easier. How do you get better at controlling your anger? By controlling it. Simple, not easy. There is absolutely nothing that you can get better at doing without doing it repeatedly. And that's what makes it hard, but you have to ask yourself is what you are trying to do worth it? You're not gonna get out of it easy. There are no short cuts. I had my pregnant wife and kids living in a motel room a decade ago. No one helped me out of it. I had to pull my head out of my ass and make it work. It took me ten years of trying and failing to get where I am today and I'm no where near done growing and learning. You have to get beat enough that you don't have an ego left. That's what happened to me. I built myself up out of the gutter but my ego was only emboldened and I ended up losing everything again and harder.
That's the secret to becoming the master of yourself. You have to stop being ruled by your ego.
I'm not telling you to be a soft pushover. Quite the opposite. It takes real strength to go to battle with yourself. Ask anyone who has ever overcome an addiction. They had to realize that they were the problem. Once you have done that, then you can start to train the weakest parts of you to be stronger. You aren't going to win overnight, in fact you are probably going to fail the first 30 times you try. And that's good. Take each time you failed and analyze it. What were your triggers? What did you do that you should have done differently? You can't learn what's making you fail without experiencing that failure. be conscious of it. Reflect on it and come up with a plan. Put that plan into action the next time whatever the trigger was comes up. If you fail again, good. Learn from it and move on. I'm doing this exact same thing every day.
Until next time,
Live Rugged