Emotional Stamina #28

What do you do when you’re having a rough day?

Maybe it starts the moment you wake up and you just don’t feel like doing your normal things? Or maybe it kicks in a little later in the day after a disappointment. Things aren’t going your way. What do you do?

Well, here’s a key lesson: We’ve gotta develop our emotional stamina—on those days when we feel the WORST, we need to be the MOST committed to rockin’ our fundamentals.

We’ve talked about this theme quite a bit over the years but I picked up that phrase “emotional stamina” from one of my early coaching sessions with Phil Stutz. He had complimented me on my emotional stamina (thanks, Phil!) and I asked him what he meant.

In short, he said that I bounce back from challenges/setbacks quickly. He told me that we need to say this to ourselves as we cultivate our self-mastery: “I don’t feel good but I’m going to keep up with the protocol. In fact, I am MOST avid about sticking with the protocol when it’s hardest.”

Imagine that.

Imagine that you are MOST committed to doing the little things you know keep you plugged in when you LEAST feel like it.

The worse we feel, the more committed we are to doing the work.

Period.

Of course, all of this presupposes that we HAVE a protocol—that we know what we need to do to stay in peak mode.

So, two questions today:

1. What’s YOUR protocol?
2. What do you do when you hit a speed bump in life?

Let’s get really clear on what we need to do to stay ON and let’s remember to be most avid about rocking the protocol when we least feel like it.