How to build the life you want.

I hope I'm not the only one who goes through phases where I absolutely suck at like hitting goals and being consistent essentially I realized that competing in the Olympia and being a bodybuilder I was going through so many phases where I would get super ramped up and prep be super consistent on a tight schedule a tight routine everything at the same time every day doing everything I needed and then I would kind of dip down right after the I would kind of fall off I'd go to the gym when I find the time but I didn't really have a routine so I would often skip days not feel great and I was giving myself a break and when I did that a lot of other things in my life were kind of falling off and then it would slowly ramp up in my offseason you know travel and business and work is kind of crazy and then it would get super dialed and locked in again for prep and I was just realizing that I was going through these phases and I was so efficient in prep and then very inefficient other times of the year so I wanted to take some of the habits and the mindsets and the things that I applied throughout prep that made me efficient and learn how to apply them to like my day-to-day life forever consistently so I kind of dove in for the last week or so just like reflecting and writing down some things that I did and my goal is to apply them to my life going forward forever and hopefully help you guys too so I'm not going to get into too deeply because I'll be sitting here for an hour and I wrote a [ __ ] lot of [ __ ] but I'm going to just tell you guys some things I put down and maybe it'll help you first thing is a clear goal obviously at the Olympia you know there's nothing more clear than a [ __ ] goal October 14th 2024 competing at the Olympia in Las Vegas like that's the goal I got to win the Olympia but this thing that always stuck with me super cheesy and I'm not going to get into deep cuz my mom was the one who taught it to me and you can find it online but it's called smart goals it stands for specific measurable achievable relatable and time base so specific you need a very specific goal not just like I want to be strong it's like how strong do you want to be at what date do you want to be strong what lifs do you want to be explosive strong do you want to be like powerlifter strong what are your specific goals measure obviously be able to measure it attainable has to be possible relatable has to be authentic to yourself something you care about time base there has to be a time base on it like I said I'm not going to get deep into that because you guys can Google that yourself but the big thing that I wanted to touch on here that I realized I applied into becoming MrOlympian I think really helped me drive my success in my life was instead of having a goal necessarily like a thing that would end and then like the Olympia would fall off afterwards it was more of an identity a sense of self that I was trying to build and become someone who could complete X so the way I kind of worded it and I had written this down in one of the monologues they did before a prep Series without even realizing that was the way I think it's instead of I want to win the Olympia it's the goals you could write out to be more efficient I want to be someone who X so I want to be someone who trains consistently every single day hit sets to failure never Skips a meal never cheats on his diet gets his sleep and Recovery that he needs all the these different things like that and I thought that was so important and a huge thing for me within that was it wasn't just the actions and the physical things you did but your mentality the way you think the way you treat people and all these things cuz you might think of the identity of the champion as someone who is a little bit you know edges on the side of arrogance super cocky confident and that's what winners do because a lot of people we see in the media are like that but that wasn't relatable or authentic to me so the self I wanted to betray before I was the champion was the humble respect full champion who treated everybody the same whether it was a former MrOlympia backstage a stage Marshal a security guard whoever it might be the person the champion I wanted to be with someone who embodied that respect because I knew people would be looking up to me when I became this Champion not only for what I did but who I was and I wanted to be someone that my mom and their moms would be proud of if that's how they were acting so the next thing I kind of dove into here was you have an identity and then creating a list of things and defining very specifically what those people do and this comes back to that goal is I want to be someone who X so I want to be someone who you know what does MrOlympia do and I you write that list down and you know you treat people with respect you're humble you go to the gym every single day whether it's to train or to do active recovering to stretch to hit ABS to hit your accessory body parts you know you never cheat on your diet and doing these things as much as possible the more you define these habits and you live these habits you will naturally become the success that you want to achieve so instead of chasing after that goal you become the identity and the person that will naturally attract that goal I think the biggest thing that people always come to me and ask me when I'm doing like meet and greets and they ask me it's always like how do I start what do I do how do I start I have all these things XY andz and you can watch a million YouTube videos read a million books and sometimes you get like overwhelmed by the amount of steps that are out there and and I mean nothing matters unless you actually do it so taking action is the most important hardest part you know I've always had this mindset that you are not what you think you're not who you think you are you just simply are what you repeatedly do so you can think positive things you can think this is huge in relationships you know like I could tell my my wife I think you're beautiful I think I love you I just don't say it well she's not going to know and feel it unless I show her with my actions and it's the same at anything in life so taking action is the most crucial point of everything and I think what people [ __ ] up is they get over overwhelmed with too many steps and things to do so this is going to be the most basic tip but the most important one if you take anything away from this build an identity and start [ __ ] small to build momentum those three things are everything when you break that down so for example when I used to be in college I used to drink three times a week get like blackout drunk go out with my friends and I loved it you know I love the social life I was in college hanging out with people was the only time my life had to be able to live like that and I was aware of that so I didn't want to sacrifice that so I did that for a period of time but then I wanted to take bodybuilding more seriously I was on the edge of going pro and I knew I had a lot of potential in me but I knew my lifestyle was holding me back but I also wasn't ready to sacrifice my social life yet so instead of just telling myself all right I'm going to stop drinking stop going out go to bed at 9:00 p. m. wake up at 6:00 a.

m. do my cardio never miss a meal do all these things I was like I'm eating pretty good still cheating a lot cuz I like going out my friends and I love going out at night but I'm going to stop drinking so I still stayed out until 2 a. m.