If you aren’t happy with the outcomes in your life, then it might be time to take a look at what you’re doing to receive them. It’s easy to play the victim, especially if you are doing what you’re “supposed to do” but not getting the results you feel you should.

For example, I haven’t hit the physical goals I want—I want to drop body fat, rebuild some muscle I let slip over the years, and regain a six-pack. I started working out with my trainer regularly and working out from home when I’m not meeting up with Franqlin. I started watching what I was eating and reducing the processed food I was consuming. I saw progress, but not the results I wanted.

I’ve looked at the output I was receiving, reviewed the inputs, and realized how I needed to change the inputs to get new outputs.

Some things will stay—the training routine isn’t changing. But some things will change—I’m tracking macros daily, eating just a couple of options for breakfast and lunch, drinking more water to avoid snacking, and prepping meals so there’s no excuse to deviate from the plan. I’m even considering ditching caffeine to see if that has any impact on the output.

We’ll see how changing these inputs will change my output, aka my body.

Marshall Goldsmith said, “What got you here won’t get you there.” He actually wrote a book with that as the title, and while that book was how successful people continue to be successful, it also applies to when we come up short on our goals. Goldsmith shows how “successful” people realize that to reach the next level, they can’t expect the same inputs to take them to where they want to go to next—those inputs can’t take them there because if they could, they’d already be there.

When we come up short on our goals, we still have arrived somewhere, and those inputs didn’t take us where we wanted to be. So just like the successful folks do, we need to change our inputs to get where we want to be and then change them again to get to the next level.

From my perspective, most of society wants to play the victim. Instead of taking accountability for the inputs they control, they focus on factors outside of their control to explain why they aren’t where they want to be. And as long as they play the victim, they will never arrive where they want to be.

Don’t be like most of society.

There very well may be obstacles out of your control that are unfair, but you still have control of your inputs, and you can change your inputs to navigate around the unfair obstacles.

If you don’t like the outputs in your life, change your inputs.

See you tomorrow and keep pursuing,

JC