Grind, Guilt or Gratitude – Which is fueling you?

Grind, guilt, or gratitude – which is fueling you? This is an important question to ponder.

You can reach some levels of success with any of these, but many find that they eventually get stuck if they are not deliberate about where they get their fuel.

When we look at high performance, there are some key behaviors and habits that need to be in place so that you get your fuel from the best source.

When you're fueled by grind, what does that look like? Well, it looks like that To Do list-oriented life, that To Do List-oriented day. It's about getting done, getting done, getting done. It feels like the grind – that's why they have the phrase, the daily grind, because we're just working at something that's about the future. It's about just putting our heads down and doing the work. In many cases, working long hours in order to get to some future idea of success. So when it comes to grind, we're typically fueled by the idea of some future success. This doesn't always lead to very much joy in our day to day.

Now, there are some that are fueled by guilt. This is the idea that we are never measuring up; we just keep trying to measure up to our idea of some thing, or someone we should be, often an idea of perfection. The day is a constant review of our shortcomings. And that in itself, this fear of not being the best, or some ideal, just pushes us to keep going. Now, sometimes it can actually cause us to underperform – it can just it can just make us freeze and not want to try it. If we’re fueled by guilt, then it's all about trying to make something happen so we can finally feel good about ourselves.

Grind and guilt can create a level of great results – I'm familiar with these types of fuel. But every time I did take my fuel that way, I did get stuck. So, I'm speaking to the people who want high performance in their lives, which means sustained levels of performance above the standard norm while you maintain your well being and positive relationships. I'm guessing that if you're listening, then you fall in that category. Maybe you're tired of being fueled by guilt and grind.

Instead, the third option is to be fueled by gratitude. The idea of gratitude is that you're filled with a sense of joy, a sense of satisfaction, and you're inspired to move forward. So instead of moving forward to try to prevent something bad from happening, you are moving forward joyfully, toward creating this wonderful idea in your mind, because you're filled with a happiness about yourself and about life. It's all about what we focus on. There are things we're not going to be happy with in any given moment. But there are likely many, many more things to be happy about. It's using that in that attention intentionally, to create a sense of gratitude to fuel you instead.

One way to really know where your fuel might be coming from is to ask yourself at the beginning of the day, What am I excited about today? If you have trouble answering that question, you are probably stuck in the guilt or grind source of fuel. When you're in gratitude, having things that are exciting in the day add to that fuel. So ask yourself, What am I excited about today? And I challenge you to create something if there's not something there. If you've been living by grind and guilt for a while, this might be challenging, but it is a worthwhile challenge to bring you into high performance. Think about what joy and excitement you could have in your life on a daily basis. Sometimes it doesn't take very many minutes to do something you enjoy. You deserve a few minutes of something in your life that creates joy! Start building that in over time so that your fuel moves away from the grind and the guilt and more toward the gratitude.

This is just one of many high performance habits that I teach as a Certified High Performance Coach. If you are interested in learning more, message me and I'd be happy to step set up a free strategy session with you. These are the conversations that I love having!