188: 4 Takeaways From Doing a Tough Mudder

Life on Fire TV (Audio) – Online Business Coaching With Nick Unsworth

Hey hey! Welcome to episode 188 of Life on Fire. Today we’re talking about what I learned from recently competing in a Tough Mudder competition. If you don’t know what a Tough Mudder is it is basically a 10-12 mile obstacle/mud course that you and your team run together.

Recently Megan and I participated and you’ll see footage of it on episode 188, thanks to our teammate Carlos’ GoPro footage! You’ll also hear the four biggest lessons I learned from competing. You’ll definitely want to hear those - especially a technique I share that you can use today to make your goals a reality (even if goal-setting hasn’t worked for you in the past).

In this episode you’ll hear:

• Why you have to let people in and ask for help. (2:35)
• How our mental perception is often worse than reality. (4:50)
• Are you capable of more than you think you are? (6:20)
• What is the difference between a goal and a commitment? (8:05)
• Why integrity matters so much, and how to keep it. (10:45)
• And so much more!

Doing a Tough Mudder was on our Life on Fire list - something I encourage you to do too. Megan and I wrote out 100 things we want to do while living our life on fire, and then each month we do one of those things. We call this a life on fire list which is more positive and inspiring than a bucket list!

One of those things on our list was a Tough Mudder, and even though it lived up to its name I’m so glad we did it! Both Megan and I learned so much, and today’s episode is all about my four biggest personal takeaways.

4. Teamwork.

Number four is the importance of teamwork. In a Tough Mudder I went through crazy obstacles, obstacles that I never could have completed without the help of my team. There is no way a person can do this thing alone. Just like every aspect of life from career to health to your personal life, you can’t do it and it’s okay to ask for help.

The lesson here is don’t try to keep doing things by yourself, especially if you are running a business. Join a mastermind, get a team to support you and help you through the good and the bad.

3. Perception.

Coming in at the number 3 spot is perception. The perception I had before doing the Tough Mudder was that the electroshock therapy part of it would be terrible!

Based on the Tough Mudder video and my friend’s experience I had the perception that this part of the race would be just awful, but looking back now it wasn’t as bad as I expected it to be. And don’t you say the same about certain things you’ve done in your life now? Remember that the next time you are faced with a challenge - your perception is making it worse than it will be!

2. You are capable of 10x more than you think you are.

One of the purposes of the Tough Mudder is to show you this. When you are going through these crazy obstacles you have to dig deep to keep running. Once you’ve done this in the race you realize you can do more than you thought you could in the rest of your life: you can ask for that promotion, start that new business, etc.

1. Goal-setting.

And the number one takeaway from doing a Tough Mudder is goal-setting, specifically why making a commitment is different than setting a goal. Commitments have more power: think of marriage vows: do you make it a goal to stay true to your spouse or do you commit to it? You commit to it of course, it is more powerful.

A simple technique I used to achieve our goal of doing a Tough Mudder, and to make it a commitment, was to share it publicly. There’s no way I would’ve stuck to doing the Tough Mudder if I hadn’t done this!

I shared it with my Facebook community that I would do a Tough Mudder and I also shared the date by when I would do it. In the mean time I started to get in shape, started training for it.

As the date got closer I thought people would’ve forgotten about my commitment to competing in the race, so I considered not doing it. I have a lot of other things I could do with my Saturday, and some other fears started to creep in. But between Megan’s encouragement and my public commitment, I went for it and completed my goal of competing in a Tough Mudder.

I believe it’s important to honor your commitments like I did with the Tough Mudder, personally I would’ve lost the respect of many of my clients and my mastermind community. Instead I chose to stay in integrity and have congruence between my words and my actions.

The next time you are setting a goal use this technique: share it publicly and watch what happens to your results! You’ll begin to see goals differently too. So why not get what you want out of your own life on fire and share your commitments publicly? Listen to to episode 188 to hear all of that and more, then go share your goals with your Facebook community.

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