5 Excellent Ways Runners Can Go From Good To Great
Powdered Feet shares five concepts she found in a business book that relate to setting and working toward your fitness goals.
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A few years ago I read the book, Good to Great by Jim Collins. The book breaks down several concepts that the author identifies has taken certain companies from good to great. Five concepts in particular stuck out to me that I share below. They stuck out because they are so relevant as universal concepts—not just for those looking to transform a business.
For those of us looking to transform ourselves, there’s a lot the book offers. Try reading the five concepts below and applying them to whatever your particular struggle or goals are—I bet they will be helpful. With some of the big fitness and life goals I’m planning for 2017 (stay tuned on those), I will need a lot of motivation to keep moving towards greatness.
Check out my five favorite concepts below:
Confront The Brutal Facts (Yet Never Lose Faith)
“You must maintain unwavering faith that you can and will prevail in the end, regardless of the difficulties, AND at the same time have the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be.”
The Flywheel Concept
Good-to-great transformations never happen in one fell swoop. “The process [resembles] relentlessly pushing a great heavy flywheel in one direction, turn upon turn, building momentum until a point of breakthrough and beyond.” Remember: “[p]eople want to be part of this spinning flywheel; they want to be part of a championship team; they want to be part of a first-class culture.”
Develop A Culture Of Discipline
“It takes discipline to say ‘No, thank you’ to big opportunities. The fact that something is a ‘once-in-a-lifetime opportunity’ is irrelevant if is doesn’t fit within [your goals]. …The challenge [is not always] opportunity creation, but opportunity selection.”
Seek Out Greatness
“…[P]erpetuation of mediocrity is an inherently depressing process and drains much more energy out of the pool than it puts back in. If you’re doing something you care that much about, and you believe in its purpose deeply enough, then it is impossible to imagine not trying to make it great. It’s just a given.”
“What work makes you feel compelled to try to create greatness? Get involved in something that you care so much about that you want to make it the greatest it can possibly be, not because of what you will get, but just because it can be done.”
Create A Stop Doing List
A stop doing list is like a “to do” list except that it forces you to consider what activities/thoughts/habits you would benefit from removing from your life that would make way for greatness. There are activities/thoughts/habits that are as important to stop doing as are the activities/thoughts/habits on your to do list that will lead you to greatness.
I’ve only skimmed the surface of these five concepts and presented the compelling parts that stuck out to me. If you are considering greatness, read the book, and then get started on your transformation.