Are you afraid of stepping out of your comfort zone? Are you a risk taker?

These are the questions that will test how far you are willing to go for your dreams. Most people are afraid to get out of their comfort zone because they are afraid of exploring new things. They are afraid to risk what they have right now because being in their comfort zone makes them feel safe.  They are afraid of stepping one step further away from the line because they are too busy comparing themselves to everyone else, even though they can see only from the outside looking in. But think about it, how far has being in your safe zone or comfort zone taken you?

Weeks ago, I posted an Instagram photo from Myleik Teele, CEO of CurlBox (who you know is one of my favorite mentors) that says something to the effect of “If you’re not where you wanna be, you have no business sleeping in.” What makes this profound is that she posted this on a Saturday, around 6 o’clock in the morning. This is the inspiration that got me to make this podcast. Reading her Instagram post on a Saturday morning, at a time when the majority of people are still enjoying the coziness of their beds, totally gives this a whole new meaning. This definitely triggered a lot of different reactions...

Some people were like, “ What? I deserve to be sleeping in late after all the hustlin’ I did the whole week.” But for me, this was a validation and an affirmation that I was on the right track.Yes, we all deserve some moments of entitlement, especially if we think that we have done all the work we had to do to get this far. But, if you are still in the same position as where you were a couple of years ago, then there must be something wrong. You must have been playing it so safe to the point that it was not pushing you anywhere close to your goals. You need do something about it. You have got to get out of that bubble that you have built around yourself. You have to cross over from the safe side to the other side of the fence and that requires you to push yourself more. Stop being so safe. Being safe is being average. And guess what: you can’t be average and amazing at the same time.

‍Some people do not understand this. It’s not just being an average person versus a being an amazing person. On a deeper note, you can’t live an average life and an amazing life at the same time. Come to think of it, we are all made in the same greatness, but some people do not take the advantage of living an amazing life over an average life. It’s got to do with the sacrifices you are willing to make to get to where life is amazing. It’s all about the choices we make. In this podcast, I talk about my personal experience of trying to be safe as a track athlete in high school, taking the easiest way out, simply because I did not want to make the extra effort and sacrifice. This caused me to miss out on a lot of the chances that I thought I should have taken, had I seen the opportunity from a different perspective.

For the full audio, please check out the podcast on iTunes and Soundcloud.[podcast]

Notes from the Podcast:

‍

Delayed gratification contributes to your success.

‍Did you know that delayed gratification is one of the main traits of a successful person? It’s power is an important factor that will help you reach your dreams. It’s what I always say, in some of my previous podcasts, that you can't have the life you want if you’re not willing to sacrifice. That is what I mean about entrepreneurs having no business sleeping in when they are still not where they want to be. If you want to be successful, you have to delay some comfort, while you are still working on achieving the dream. You don’t have to be as extreme as me, but you have to constantly push yourself to do things that will contribute to your success and make some sacrifices for it. Once you get to the top, then you will appreciate all the hard work you did and savor your success.

‍

‍Align yourself with your gift and passion.

‍Have you wondered why there are some things that burn you out?Most of us go through life walking like zombies. We do the routine and before we know it, we get trapped in the rat race. It’s a cycle, of going through the 9-5 and then live life from paycheck to paycheck. You come home every day, you know you should be doing something but you have no idea what that is so you just make a little dinner, pass out on the couch, goof around on the internet, watch a little TV, fall asleep at 11 o'clock, wake up, look up and say, "Oh snap, it's 11:30, I'm still in my clothes on the couch. Let me get up and go upstairs and put on my pajamas and go to bed."Ironic, because we were born to live, but we spend our lives as if we are already dead, not really living the amazing life we all deserve. Find your purpose and live it.

“The greatest tragedy in life is not death, but living without a purpose.” - Myles MunroeIf you are either working a job you hate or maybe something that’s just not your thing, not really something that you’re passionate about, you feel bored. You feel like you're not really plugged in doing what you wanna do. But just the idea that you are doing something that you are passionate about, that you feel that you were made for, that you feel is a part of your purpose, operating in that space creates more energy. None of that stuff is gonna work if you're not willing to get yourself into a space where you can even experience that flow by doing what you were called to do, at least carving out some space for it. And it’s going to take more energy. The worst thing to be is knowing your life’s purpose and not doing something about it.

You get burned out because you're working too hard on things outside of your purpose. You feel drained of energy because you are doing things that are not aligned with what God has planned for you. This is huge. And I talked about this earlier how operating in your purpose gives you more energy. Yet simply operating, just doing mundane things, just going through the cycle, not doing something to be more than just average and not really pushing yourself to do what makes you happy, actually drains energy from you.

I previously talked about why I was genuinely burned out, and I was working too hard, and I felt like I was trying to grind things out in my own strength. It was mostly because I was not allowing the grace of God to just take me the rest of the way. I realized you actually don't get burned out because you're working too hard. You get burned out because you're working too hard on things outside of your purpose.

‍

‍Focus on the things that matters

‍Do you know how much energy you would have if you just got up an hour early and worked on something that was meaningful, and purposeful for you, even if you were at a place where you wanted to leave your job but you couldn't? Start your day by doing something you love. Focus on the things that matter first, it's going to create energy for you because you're doing what you're made to do.

You would bring so much energy, not only to your job, but to your day after you got home from work. Even if it was a stressful day because you started your day by doing something you love  and you fueled your day doing something that you were built to do, you still end up happy and fulfilled. You started the day running the race that you were built to run.

‍

‍Dare to be different

‍This might sound bad, but our society is keen in providing us with everything that’s designed to kind of keeping us average.

They don't call the TV the "Idiot Box" for no reason. I’m not saying all television shows are, but majority of it are showing things that lacks substance. You watch them and you feel  duller or even more stupid after watching TV for a long time because there's just not a lot of substance in things anymore.

And so knowing that society is designed or at least inadvertently designed, not to make you excellent but be ordinary, then you have to realize that it's gonna take extra effort in order for you to break out of the inertia, from the gravity of all this averageness that exists in our society here on Earth.We’re all so scared to put our toe in the water, and take that first dip. We don't realize that in order for you to be excellent, for you to be amazing, you are going to have to blast off from what’s average, break free from the chain that’s binding you to the ordinary.

And so it's not fair for you to sit on the outside and say that the sacrifices are too much and you’re not willing to do the hard work, because you are gauging the amount of energy you expect to have based on the current lifestyle that you're living in the current reality that you're engaged in.

You owe it to yourself to be more than just average and be amazing. You were born with it, equipped with the right resources. It would be an insult to your Maker not use your God-given talents to be amazing because we were all born to be amazing. So if you're about the amazing life, that's how you do it. It's not about burn out, it's about running full throttle towards what you were meant to do. So if you discipline yourself to do the things that really matter, I promise, I promise, I promise it'll change your life.

We all have different gifts, different talents, different scenarios, different races that we are built for, but the truth is you have to go all out, be amazing, no matter what that race is.