Excellence Is Inevitable!
By Tommy Newberry

In the last edition of New Man, I wrote about the unrepeatable opportunity you and I have to do wise, wonderful and grand things with the limited time we have here on earth. Of course, this opportunity exists both inside and outside our home. We have the chance to find our Genius, or area of greatest strength, and apply it to the huge dream in our life. We have the opportunity to grow in a relationship with the Lord, really love our wife, and influence our children and their offspring for generations to come. While we are called to satisfy these priorities, we are not compelled to do so. We can passively or even actively abandon these divine mandates and go virtually unnoticed these days. In fact, neglecting these responsibilities and commitments has been "normalized" in our culture to the point that an authentically successful man is quite often the exception and not the rule. When you spot a real man like this, he actually stands out, almost like a rare breed, nearing extinction. What about you?

How are you doing with your critical opportunity? Are you seizing it and making the most of it or are you running from it? Remember, this opportunity to maximize your full potential is only a possibility or an option. It is not a guarantee of greatness or an entitlement to excellence. As Christian men, we do have a higher calling and with this mission also comes a greater responsibility to deliver back to the world that special something that God entrusted us with when He first breathed life into us.

In my coaching practice, I have observed that lack of focus is the number one reason why men underachieve both professionally and personally. By "underachieve," I mean fail to access and apply their God-given potential to the opportunities in their path. Mental discipline, conversely, is the ability to keep your thoughts focused on goal-directed or high-value activity to the exclusion of all else. Fortunately, you can train yourself to develop superior levels of mental focus so that you can accomplish virtually any worthwhile goal you resolve to pursue. With high levels of mental discipline, you reach the right goals faster, experience more joy, and become a lot more fun to be around. Almost any meaningful goal moves within reach when you become mentally disciplined.

Without mental discipline, even relatively easy goals become a strain. With weak mental muscles, your emotional life is random and unpredictable. Mental laziness slowly dissolves your potential for greatness---first privately, and then publicly. By deliberately working to improve your mental game, you will upgrade every area of your life. You will hit your business goals faster. Your family life will be more peaceful. With strong, toned mental muscles, you'll be more fit spiritually, emotionally, and physically. Here's a simple formula that you can use to better understand your past, present and future performance.

NT + ASK X MD = PPP

Here's the formula for unlocking your full potential. Your natural talent plus your acquired skills and knowledge times mental discipline equals your personal performance potential. The great equalizer, as you can see from this formula, is your degree of mental discipline. We can't alter your genetics or natural talent so we will not squander effort in that area. We can improve your skills and knowledge through study, repetition, sheer will, and an exceptionally strong work ethic. This can add tremendously to your potential. Mental discipline, though, can exponentially multiply your personal effectiveness in any area in which you wish to apply it. Let's discuss the four fundamentals that must be cultivated and put into practice if you want to awaken your potential for great results through mental discipline.

ONE: CLARITY
The first building block of mental discipline is clarity about what is to be accomplished, both in the immediate moment as well as long term. Without a precise target to shoot for, your thought life will bounce back and forth between competing objectives or non-objectives, between what you want to achieve and what you want to avoid. How could you possibly experience mental discipline if your goals are fuzzy or ambiguous? It's critical to know both what needs to be accomplished right now such as with a business proposal or golf swing as well as longer-term goals such as annual revenue, a desired handicap or the legacy you intend to leave behind.

TWO: CONCENTRATION
The next component of mental discipline is concentration, referring to how well you stay engaged in the current moment and fixed on "what's important now" (WIN) or the "how in the now." Anything less than 100% concentration reveals divided attention and double-mindedness. Remember, distractions are simply misplaced attractions that downgrade your potential. Multi-tasking is the nastiest villain when it comes to interrupting pure concentration. Other common traps include physically being at home, but mentally being at the office. Many of the men that I work with confide that while at work their mind often drifts to their family and while at home their mind can easily become scattered with work issues. This inner distraction is very common. If you're an athlete, then double mindedness may be caused by either off-the-field distractions or from a dysfunctional preoccupation with your last performance, such as your previous at bat or last golf swing. Distractions often arise from "losing the current moment" by dwelling on an unchangeable past moment or worrying about a future situation instead of transforming the present circumstances to your advantage.

Three: CONFIDENCE
Confidence is the third aspect of mental discipline. This is your belief in your capability to reach a particular goal or bundle of goals. While genuine confidence is rooted in actual accomplishment, past performance alone does not ensure confidence will be developed or maintained. Sustainable self-confidence grows from exhaustive preparation, winning moments, positive memories and a focus on incremental progress instead of perfection. How much preparation have you been pouring into your most important relationships and priorities? Do you tend to mentally replay and relive your best or worst moments? Are you focused on achievable progress or unattainable perfection?

Four: CHALLENGE
Challenge is the next trait of mental discipline meaning the degree of demand that you willingly place upon yourself. Your mental discipline rises to meet the level of goal that you establish for yourself. Small goals will extract only surface potential. Huge goals release untapped reserves and trigger surprising breakthroughs. Too many men look for the quick fix or the easy answer. They think in terms of minimums or "that's good enough." They use their energy to evade the pressure moments and escape the spotlight situations that introduce champions to the world. As a man of God, this is not for you! Ironically, your best self is revealed when the stakes are high, when the deadline is looming, and when the game is on the line. Anyone can occasionally experience peak performance. We can all have a great day now and then. But, your standard is much higher. Like a world-class athlete, when you master mental discipline, you will find yourself replicating your best performance at will. When you do, you'll find that excellence is inevitable!

Focus on your natural gifts

Finally, remember that it is much easier to become and stay mentally disciplined when you love what you do. When you strategically pick a career pursuit in which you are naturally gifted, not only will it be more fun and rewarding, it will also awaken your potential for peak performance in ways that you may have never expected. This is the place where you are capable of making the greatest contribution in the world. While it is possible to achieve goals outside your innate talent bank, it takes extra effort and is far less satisfying in the long run. You can become really good at lots of things, but greatness is only possible when you identify your unique strengths, fortify them with practice, infuse them with wise counsel and then multiply them with mental discipline.

What is God whispering in your ear? What do you secretly want to do with your life? Only when you really love what you do like a cherished hobby will you have what it takes to generate tremendous results in the marketplace. Whether you're a star athlete, pastor, business leader, FBI agent, entrepreneur, or teacher, you have a marketplace-you have a group of people you are charged with serving in one way or another.

Exercise the courage to honestly identify where you have been uniquely blessed — where you have special talents and abilities that can be leveraged in service to others. If you don't know, pray about it. Ask your wife. Ask your friends. But seek it out. I believe every man has the ability to become outstanding at least one thing if he is selective and if he throws his whole heart into becoming the best. Remember, when you lose yourself with enthusiasm for what you do, excellence is inevitable!

Tommy Newberry is the author of The 4:8 Principle and Success Is Not an Accident, both from Tyndale House Publishers. Visit him online at www.tommynewberry.com

Where Do You Have Special Talent?

(Get some clues by answering these questions)

1. If money were not a need for you--if you were taken care of financially and could use your week any way you wanted to--how would you spend most of your time?
2. What is the most important piece of career advice you would pass on to your child?
3. In what aspects of your life do other people tend to be most impressed with your performance?
4. What were four specific activities you loved doing when you were ten years old?
5. What recurring activities cause you to feel distracted or "off purpose"?