Its Time ToGrow a Pair and Be Your Own Hero

How to unleash your greatness and make your markThis message is not about building biceps. Its about shrinking balls.In the spirit of calling a spade a spadeweve become a society of soft, wimpy, fearful, politically correct, entitlement driven, hyper-sensitive and convenience-addicted weenies.I am not of this tribe. I loathe mediocrity. I find excuse making revoltingand, I believe many parents and institutions are handicapping their children by shielding them from obstacles, hard work, failure and suffering. Rather than placing blame and focusing on the problemI prefer to educate and provide a sustainable solution for building a strong, vibrant and responsibility driven society. THE PLEASURE PRINCIPLE In Freuds psychoanalytic theory of personality, the pleasure principle is the instinctive seeking of pleasure and avoiding of pain in order to satisfy our most basic and primitive urges, including hunger, thirst, anger, and sex. Sometimes referred to as the pleasure-pain principle, this motivating force helps drive behaviorbut it also intensely desires instant satisfaction. The Pleasure Principle helps us understand why people by nature are quite predictable, easily manipulated and seemingly defenseless when it comes to issues of ease and convenience. In other wordswithout a challenge, without the conscious pursuit of the strenuous life, and without self or externally enforced resistancemost people will not stretch themselvesthey will not willingly put themselves in a position of vulnerabilitythey will not become their own heroand they most certainly will not grow into their full potential. The majority of people are not hard acts to followthey look for the low bar by focusing on the bare minimum they can do to get bythey settle for mediocritythey are quick to call it quits, and capitulate their dreams to the smallest of obstacles and the slightest whiff of fear. They are inclined to procrastination and laziness, and they tend to crawl into the false sense of security promised by the comfort zone. They create diversions by hiding behind excuses, habits, customs and the latest technologyand in the name of protective posturing; they do everything in their power to minimize risk, prevent rejection and shy away from any form of responsibility or accountability.As a result of these behavioral indiscretions (poor choices), they display the mental strength of a 98-pound weaklingthey throw commitment, character and courage under the busthey undermine their own reputation. By doing so, they rob themselves and the world of another masterpiece, another great bookanother superior teacher. DO HARD THINGS The solution is to do hard thingsto live the strenuous lifeto pursue challenging goalsto grow a pair and be your own hero. Hard, challenging goals or pursuits are illuminating in that they immediately expose weakness and reveal strength. They do that by testing your mind, resolve, character and commitmentas you will either RISE TO MEET the mental demands and physical rigors of a challenge or you will succumb to them. Ultimately, your response to a hard task or challenging goal exposes you for the courageous or cowardly person you really are.And, precisely because victory begins in the mindall challenges are initially won or lost between your ears. THE CHALLENGE RESPONSE PRINCIPLE The human body serves as the perfect metaphor for understanding the importance of pursuing hard, challenging goals for the simple reason that the body is built to adapt and respond to demands that are placed upon it. The stronger the demandthe stronger the response. Physical muscles continue to grow and strengthen through the challenge response principle. This principle is based on the theory that muscles must be challenged in order to upgrade and grow and that they will progressively work to overcome a resistance force when required to do so. The opposite is also true, as physical muscles will downgrade and weaken with the absence of a challenge. As an example, if you simply lift the same amount of weight each time out, you keep your muscles in a comfort zone and dont provide any resistance force for them to adapt and grow. The Challenge Response Principleoperates the same way in every area of our lives, and that is why we all NEED to be challenged. And not just physically challenged, we need intellectual, leadership, spiritual, relational, sales, and any type of performance challenge that stretches us to growforces us to overcome adversity, tests our character and commitment, and which inspires us to resist the gravitational pull of the comfort zone.When will your finest hour come, and how will it arrive? Do you really think it will materialize without a challenge, without being pushed to your limits, without perseverance being tested, without being tormented and put through your own personal hell? In short, for an individual, team, company, community or country to become great, it requires that they DO HARD THINGS by looking for and rising to the great challenges that are thrust upon themor the ones they thrust upon themselves.

My goal is writing this message is to persuade you that there is an awesome opportunity waiting for you to pounce on ita chance to significantly change your lifeunleash your greatness and make your mark.Not by doing things that are soft and easy, but by doing things that are hard, demanding and highly rewarding.It starts by making a simple choiceBe Your Own Hero.

I created the 100 Day Challenge to show you how!Gary Ryan Blair is creator of the 100 Day Challengea radical approach to goal achievement that shows people how to achieve 10X size goals by applying the methods and best practices of growth hacking. Get all the details here.If you enjoyed this postit would mean a lot to me if you could click on the claps iconup to 50 claps allowed Thank You!