Welcome To The Sweet Spot

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Success.

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Welcome to the sweet spot. Welcome to the sweet spot.

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Welcome back to the sweet spot with Dr. Derek Sweet, a board-certified psychiatrist specializing in sports and performance. In the Sweet Spot, we explore what it takes to stay steady and perform when the pressure is on and the moment matters. Stay tuned for Dr. Sweet's Take Action Tuesday.

Standards Are The Floor

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Welcome back. Welcome back, beloved sweet spotters. Thank you so much for joining me on this journey with taking revisiting standards. Revisiting the power of standards. A podcast we've done many times before. Raise your floor, the science of standards is what we're calling this. And today's episode, Why the Disciplined Use Less Willpower, not more, is what we're going to cover. Why is it that the disciplined actually use less willpower, not more, when they're taking action? Now before we go anywhere, let me tell you what I mean by standard. We spoke about it last time. I just want to revisit it with you one more time. Remember, we said a standard is your floor. It isn't the ceiling you're reaching for. No, it's not that. It's it's the line you refuse to drop below. That's what a standard is. It's what you still do on your worst day ever. The effort that you will not stop giving, that you won't drop, the rep that you're just not gonna skip, the prep, the preparation that you're not gonna cut. That's the standard, the floor you won't fall below. The way you show up for your family, for your friends, for your loved ones, for your co-workers every day. The way you show up when you're tired, the way you show up when you're losing, and when nobody is watching. It isn't the ceiling, it's the floor, it's the line that you will not go below.

Goals Pull You Up

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Yeah, and here's the difference that's that's sort of changing everything, right? A goal pulls you up. We talked about that last time. A standard holds you up. You see, goals live in the future, they give us that thing to shoot for: the North Star. What we are planning to get done. Standards, the standards we hold live in what you and I are doing right now to get to those goals. And on the hard days, beloved, the goal is usually nowhere to be found. Isn't that odd? When the proverbial you know what hits the fan, the goals are hard to see, they're hard to figure out, and uh that's why we have to have the floor, which is the standard, the part that we will not go below. You see, sweet spotter, motivation shows up when it feels like it. But your floor, your standard, your floor shows up every time. So the whole game is how high you build your floor and whether it's gonna hold you up when everything else gives way. That's what standards are about when you're building standards. It's not about raising your ceiling. Sometimes and most times, it's about raising the floor, and that's what this whole series has been about as we revisit standards. And as we think through taking action and making our moves, becoming winners, champions, whatever we say about ourselves.

Discipline Uses Less Willpower

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Here's the thing that nobody tells us that the most disciplined people you know and I know are working less hard than we think. That's right. Less hard than we think. They found a way to make the floor hold itself. That's the key. And let me show you how they do that. You see, I want to correct something we've been thinking, we've been taught and thinking our whole lives. We've been told our whole lives that people who take action have more discipline than the rest of us. They have more grit, they have more willpower. And maybe that's partially true, but I've sat with enough high performers to tell you that it's closer to the opposite. What I've found is that the most consistent people I know and I work with are using less willpower than you and I are, not more. They're using less. How is that? You see, once you see how and you understand this, you do the same thing. And here's the mechanism. The first thing is we have to grasp and understand that willpower is limited, it is limited fuel. There's only so much willpower each of us has. Trying to decide whether they're gonna get out of bed or not. They've already decided. No negotiation, there's no debate at 6 a.m. in the morning. If it's cold, they're not bargaining with the blanket to figure it out. I speak to myself. The choice was made a long time ago, so they have a full tank at the end of the day, or they have a full tank because they're not spending energy trying to figure out what to do. So the tank stays full for the things that actually need a choice. Because that decision was taken off the table. And that's the secret hiding in plain sight. The power of a standard is that it takes the decision out of your hands. Once you have a standard, that's it. The decision is made. And here's the strange part, sweet builders. The path to more action runs through fewer decisions, not more, not more effort. People think discipline feels like a constant fight or this constant grind. At best, it actually feels like relief because the war is already over, it's already done. The decision is already made, the standard has already been set. This is what we're not going below. No negotiation. Kobe Bryant put it best: I don't negotiate with myself. And the ancient wisdom backs us up here on the science, soul, and success, which is what we're all about here on the sweet

Ancient Wisdom On Taking Action

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spot. The ancient wisdom, the book of James, put action at the center of life 2,000 years ago. In chapter 1, I think it's verse 22, it says, be doers of the word, not hearers only. The writer knew that belief, which never becomes action, is a kind of self-deception. It can feel like progress, but it's actually not moving. It moves nothing. And the Bhagavad Gita gives us another perspective. You see, James in the ancient wisdom told us that belief has to become action. But you can't only think it, you have to do it. That's James. But real talk, there's a reason we don't act, and it's not because we're lazy, it's the fear of how things might turn out. That's what stops so much of us, and that's what the Gita tells us is that we have to trust that the outcome will be what whatever it is, and we'll be able to handle it. This is an ancient text, this Bhagavad Gita. It's an ancient Indian text, one of the most beloved texts in the world. And I'm just gonna slow down and tell you about it because it's it's it's important. The whole thing is that this is a conversation set on a battlefield in the moment before a war. And on one side is a warrior named Arjuna. He's frozen, he's overwhelmed, he's terrified, he's staring at a fight that isn't really something he thinks he can win. He's not sure he can conquer this enemy, he's not sure he can overcome this obstacle, he's not sure he can win the battle. Beside Arjuna is this chariot, and in the chariot is Krishna or Krishna, who in the story is the divine, a representation of the divine, showing up as his guide. And look, I can resonate with Arjuna because he's frozen not by weakness, it's the outcome. It's what he's afraid that he might lose, who he might lose, what he might lose, whether this is going to be worth taking the risk, how is this going to end and turn out, and the fear of what might be and what might not be is what has him frozen. The fear of the result is the thing holding this warrior still. So Krishna gives him in chapter 2, verse 47, gives him this insight.

Do The Work Release Results

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You have a right to your action, but you have no right to the fruits of it. You have no right to the fruits of the action. What you have rights to is the action. So here's what this actually means. Because it's not that you just do your part and leave the rest to chance. That's not what I think is being shared here. What it means is this give everything you have to the effort. Bring your whole being to the effort, to the action before you today. That part is yours. Then loosen your grip on what the outcome is. Hand that over to God. Hand that over to time, to chat, to process, hand that over to the work itself. Trust. Because the moment your action depends on a result that you cannot guarantee, fear will take the wheel, and you will freeze, and you will not take action, and you will avoid. Just like Arjuna. Overwhelmed, stuck, frozen, ignoring the action that you know you should take. So that's why taking the action-making movement is so important even when you don't know the outcome. It doesn't spare you the loss. What it does is it frees you from the fear of the loss that stops you before you even start. So your standard is the action. That you will take one action, one honest rep. The call that you know you should make, the visit that you know you should do, the apology that you need to give, the page in the book that you say you're going to write, the workout that you're skipping. Give it everything and leave the results where they belong. With God, with your higher power, with the process. That isn't surrendering to chance, it's the deepest kind of faith you can have. You do your part with all you've got, and you trust that your part was always enough, and that your part was always enough to be asked of you, and that's what you bring to the table, and that's your standard.

Your Next Honest Rep

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For science, for soul, and for success, you're in the sweet spot. If this registered with you today and you haven't subscribed to us, please do and help us grow the sweet spot community. And if you know someone who could benefit from this, share it. And I'll see you as we continue on the journey. This is Dr. Sweet.

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Thank you for listening to the Sweet Spot with Dr. Derek Sweet. If today's message was helpful, please feel free to share it and subscribe. There's no cost to subscribing, and it helps others to discover the show. We hope you'll join us again for another inspiring message from Dr. Sweet and the Sweet Spot team. Forces onions, soul and success. Stay with the Sweet Spot.

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Success.