3 Fights Each Day
“Sometimes the prize is not worth the costs. The means by which we achieve victory are as important as the victory itself.”
― Brandon Sanderson
Every day presents us with new challenges. Whether it’s a personal struggle, or a challenge at work, or something that requires you to stand and deliver.
To find your strength.
To summon your courage, or find your motivation, or to dig deep and give it your all.
Adapt, Adjust, Or Avoid Situations
Sometimes you wonder whether the struggle is worth it. Then other times you breakthrough. And, other times you wonder why it was even a struggle at all.
The struggle is your growth. And every struggle is a chance for personal growth and self-actualization. It’s also a chance to really build your self-awareness.
For example, how well can you read a situation and anticipate how well you will do? In every situation, you can either Adapt, Adjust, or Avoid the situation. Adapt means you change yourself for the situation. Adjust means you change the situation to better suite you. And Avoid means, stay away from it. You will be like a fish out of water. If you don’t like roller coasters, then don’t get on them.
So every situation is a great opportunity to gain insight into yourself as well as to learn how to read situation, and people, much better. And the faster you adapt, the more fit you will be to survive, and ultimately thrive.
Nature favors the flexible.
The 3 Fights We Fight Each Day
But aside from Adapting, Adjusting, and Avoiding situations, it also helps to have a simple mental model to frame your challenges each day. A former Navy Seal frames it for us really well. He says we fight 3 fights each day:
- Inside you
- The enemy
- The “system”
Maybe you can relate? Each day you wake up, your first fight is with yourself. Can you summon your best energy? Can you get in your most resourceful state? Can you find your motivation? Can you drop a bad habit, or add a good one? Can you get into your best frame of mind to tackle the challenges before you?
Winning this fight sets the stage for the rest.
The second fight is what most people would consider the actual fight. It’s the challenge you are up against. Maybe it’s winning a deal. Maybe it’s doing your workout. Maybe it’s completing an assignment or task at work. Either way, this is where if you lost your first fight, this is going to be even tougher now.
The third fight is with the “system.” Everybody operates within a system. It might be your politics, policies, or procedures. You might be in a school or a corporation or an institution, or on a team, or within an organization. Either way, there are rules and expectations. There are ways for things to be done. Sometimes they work with you. Sometimes they work against you. And herein lies the fight.
In my latest post, I share some simple ways from our Navy Seal friends how you can survive and thrive against these 3 fights:
You can read it quickly. But use the tools inside to actually practice and prepare so you can respond better to your most challenging situations. If you practice the breathing techniques and the techniques for visualization, you will be using the same tools that the world’s best athletes, the Navy Seals, the best execs, and the highest achievers use … to do more, be more, and achieve more … in work and life.