What kind of juice do you like?

Do you prefer juice already squeezed for you, filled with artificial ingredients geared at inhibiting your success or do you prefer freshly squeezed juice filled with nutritional greatness geared at optimizing your potential?

Of course you are gonna say the second one as why would anyone want to inhibit their success? However that is exactly what we do every single day.

Every single situation or journey in life comes with three integral stages.

1. The Thought
2. The Action
3. The Reward

We see those of success on social media, at work, in our community or on TV and we get googly eyed over their success or their reward. Our minds eye skips the steps in between and we either glamourize what they have or beat ourselves up for not having what they have.

Some may even take it a step further and start formulating plans, thoughts or ideas for how they can incorporate more success into their path. I know personally I come up with at least a half dozen ideas each day on what I can do better as a dad, doctor, husband and friend. The shortfall comes when it just stays on reserve as a thought.

Out of the three integral stages for success, the thought is the longest and most frequented stage. We build up an idea in our head but then once stage two starts we freeze, hesitate or turn back on our actions. We struggle with the idea that it will be too hard, too difficult, I am not smart enough, I am not ready, what will people say and numerous other excuses.

The first principle in the Make It Count lifestyle is what we call "The Juice Is Worth The Squeeze." The idea is that we all are envious of success and what others have but struggle with getting our own success off the ground. We have ideas but calling action to our thoughts becomes debilitating. We worry that it will be too difficult. In truth, you are probably right! Success is not easy. It takes consistent, determined hard work. However it's that hard work that makes everything worth it.

Lets jump back to that first paragraph though and how good do you think the freshly squeezed juice tastes? How rewarding to do you think its to drink the fresh juice versus the processed juice? How good do you think you would feel the next day between drinking the two juices? How well do you think you could repeat the actions of squeezing when you know the outcome is worth it?

My answer to all of these is "The Juice Is Worth The Squeeze." The fresh juice tastes better, makes you feel better, easy to repeat because the reward is amazing. The long, tedious work tastes great in the end.

All of this falls similar into the second stage. The action is always tough because it makes you work. The outcome of the work is success or failure but aren't they both the same. With both we reach an outcome that makes us better off. When we succeed in our day we know what to do in order to reach consistent, repeatable results. When we fail in our day we also learn what didn't work thus we are able to course correct and consistently make the outcome better or desirable.

Hard work is tough, hard work makes you dig deep, hard work makes you sweat, hard work will make you cry, hard work digs deep into emotions, hard work is hard work and hard work is worth the squeeze!

To read more on this principle and more principles in the Make It Count lifestyle find the book Make It Count: Tools to Maximize Your Life on Amazon.

Have a great day and Make It Count!

Dr. Jake