Results Are Preceded By Attitude

In James Clear’s Newsletter last week he shared a compelling insight about getting results in your life. There are a lot of factors that go into being successful and many different threads you can pull to offer explanations for it. It all comes down to cause and effect, and James offers a path that tracks back to attitude.

I tend to agree. Something I’ve been really focused on recently is approaching things with a good attitude. It’s not that I’m a miserable person to be around, but I’ve found how much better things are when you set the intention to be patient, joyful, and loving. It really does shape what you experience.

This is what James said: “Everyone wants better results. Skill precedes results. Practice precedes skill. Attitude precedes practice. It's the willingness to try (and keep trying) that leads to ability.”

This line of thought does two really important things. First, it makes the claim that results come from higher quality actions. When you build up a skill, you create more leverage so that each repetition produces more and better outcomes. There’s nothing that shifts your reality other than your actions and the actions taken around you.

The other piece James addresses is he attacks the real constraint.  Your level of skill isn’t the true bottleneck to your results. It may be mistaken as the problem because that is what’s immediately observable. But the real constraint is your ability to improve your skill, through practice, which is a matter of resilience. It’s actually an inner game where the weakest point is our ability to persevere through uncomfortable emotions that suggest we’re not good enough or unworthy. It’s a defense against the fear of looking stupid or embarrassing ourselves.

Attitude is the antidote. A better attitude helps you replace discouraging thoughts with empowering ones. You can override the way your belief system is trying to make you feel out of self-protection so that you don’t feel as much resistance to getting in more messy reps.

A better attitude makes you less vulnerable to quitting and more willing to try, which enables more practice and cultivates skills that can be leveraged to achieve results. 

There are conscious and unconscious elements to your attitude. You can improve it both by choosing your attitude and improving the underlying beliefs that inform your attitude. It’s the reason why mindset is such a big part of being the best version of yourself!

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