Expect More from Yourself

When you woke up this morning, did you expect something great from yourself? Were you able to say to yourself, ‘I will make this day great,’ and make something great happen? In a world where we’re expected to be on and available 24/7, it’s easy to get lost—pulled away from what matters. I know. It happened to me. It’s still happening. But when you’re chasing greatness, you must expect more from yourself.

Avoiding the Status Quo

I know that twelve months from now I don’t want my life to be the same. I don’t want to feel like I’m off purpose, wandering like a deer in the smoldering woodlands after a wildfire. Because when things get tough, it’s easy to fall back into the bad habits that keep you stuck where you are. If I am not thoughtful in my spending, I can’t save money and risk getting stuck in a cycle of never ‘having enough.’ If I don’t show up and write every day, I can’t finish the book and publish it.

That’s why you have to expect more from yourself, why I demand more from myself. Otherwise, nothing can change and the status quo prevails. You must have a do attitude. Because the only way to bring about change is to take action. Or, as Brendon Burchard advises in his book, High Performance Habits: How Extraordinary People Become that Way, you need to raise necessity.¹

Expect More from Yourself

When you expect more from yourself, you’re willing to go to the gym even when you don’t feel like it. You’ll sit down and write the next chapter of your book because you told yourself you would, and you keep your word. That doesn’t mean, however, that you’re not going to have off days or bad days. I’ve had a couple of ‘bad’ days recently and getting things done was hard.  And to get back on track, I had to raise necessity.

Again, when you expect more from yourself you’re prepared to become a high performer in your life. You know that where you are isn’t where you need to be because you believe there is more that you are capable of. That’s why change requires you to raise the necessity to take action. It’s no longer, as Burchard writes, a preference but a must. “Yes, necessity demands that you take action. When you feel necessity, you don’t sit around wishing or hoping. You get things done.”²

Go get things done.

But let me remind you first that you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter. And, best of all, you do not need anyone’s permission to be—unapologetically—who you are.

1. Burchard, B. (2017). High Performance Habits: How Extraordinary People Become that Way, New York, Hay House, Inc., p. 129. [↩]
2. Burchard, B., p. 129. [↩]