The Hustle. Are You All In?

What to know how you get from where you’re at right now, to that moment when you’re living your dream? It’s called HUSTLE and commitment! I was coaching one of my clients the other day and she mentioned her husband always comes back with the same response any time she talks about making a vision board or changing her life plan… “How?” Is all he wants to know. How are you going to do that?

Hustle is the how.  Commitment is the when. 

Those are the big questions we face when we are starting out. We look at our current circumstances, the reality of our “now” and say, how the hell am I going to achieve that end result? And when will it get here? It seems so impossible and overwhelming.  So unattainable.  And we focus on that for a while, and then we start to get depressed, and convince ourselves that it’s crazy to have set goals/dreams so out of our actual reach, and we slowly resign to the “truth” we believe, which is that we can’t really do it, so why bother trying.

I will be the first to raise my hand and say I’ve used this exact thought process throughout my life when it came to dieting and working out.  You look at yourself in the mirror, or in a picture that someone with no-photo-taking-skills took of you, and say “oh my god! I need to make a change!” So you put a picture on your wall of a perfectly fit person and you tell yourself every day that you are that perfectly fit person. And then you tell your girlfriend that you intend to become that perfectly fit person while eating a bag of chips and drinking a margarita. And she looks at you and says… “Oh realllllly? How?”  And you look at yourself and then at the picture, and you say… “Damnit, you’re right. That is ridiculous. What the hell, let’s have another drink!”

But the how was there all along.  You just didn’t want to really face it, or uncover what it’s made of because you knew it sounded a lot like WORK! And just like your dreams, even the ones you have a hard time fully defining they also all involve work. And it’s just up to you to decide if you are all in or not. If you are then you will get results, guaranteed but if you’re not, you are on your own!

What do I mean by all in? You have got to be committed to your end result. Here’s a perfect example…

My Saturday Morning…

Three years ago I started training to run the Portland Marathon. I am NOT a runner. I have never been a runner, was not in particularly stellar shape, and did not enjoy running in the slightest. However it sounded like something a successful women who had her life all figured out would do, and when I “created” that women on my first Future Board it seemed logical that a women like that would also run marathons in her free time.  So I signed up with Portland Fit, a training program that helps wannabe runners like me prepare to run the big race.

I showed up the first day in March (six months prior to the marathon) with hundreds of other runners and began jogging. As the weeks passed I realized what a major commitment I’d gotten myself into. I had to find a sitter in the evenings so I could do my practice runs at the gym and one for those early Saturday morning runs that I’d unknowingly committed to every Saturday for the next six months.  This was the HOW. This was the path from point A to the finish line. If I just showed up every week, did what I was told, and believed in my outcome I’d be able to cross that line in October.

But someplace in the back of my mind was a voice that said “you are out of your mind! A girl like you does NOT run marathons!” But I kept showing up week after week, putting in the work, buying the equipment, changing my diet and sleeping patterns. Taking it one day at a time. Before long I was in the best shape of my life and actually loving it. When people would ask me about the actual marathon I’d change the subject. They’d want to know if I’d registered for the event, and would remind me to do so before it sold out. I didn’t. I put it off and put it off, all the while showing up for my runs, and getting up to eighteen miles one Saturday… that day I’d heard the marathon had officially sold out. So I quit. Just like that.

You see I was never fully committed to my end result. I never fully believed it was achievable for me, and I manifested that exact result.  I put in the work, I was committed on the micro level but not bought in on the macro level.  And what I believed is the result I got.

This year I signed up with Portland Fit again, and Saturday was my first real run since quitting three years ago. This time I signed up for the marathon the same day, and have convinced myself that no matter what happens this time I’m crawling, half dead, over that damn finish line!

To get to your dream, you have got to be 200% committed to achieving that end result. To living that moment. For me it will be the moment when I cross the line and give my son a hug and say “see I did it!”  The only thing that will keep you going in the tough times, the ones where you want to give up is that commitment. The determination that nothing will prevent you from living your moment. That mixed with the daily hustle, and the belief that it’s possible is what calls the universe to align all your stars and make the pieces you can’t control work in your favor. But it’s not a magic wand. It’s a formula. If followed results will come, so decide if your all in. And if you are let nothing stand in your way, and realize this is a for life decision. This isn’t for a month or two, it’s for the rest of your life, this is the new you.

Cheers to that! Margarita anyone?

Commitment and hustle this time are gonna get me over the finish line!

Follow my journey to run the Marathon every Sat morning live on Twitter @SarahCentrella #MarathonLife

About Sarah Centrella

Author | Life Coach | Motivational Speaker and single mama. I'm a chick on a mission to prove anything is possible for ANYONE. My story featured in the New York Times, Steve Harvey Show and NBC.