Alright Junkies, the New Year is upon us…

At the stroke of midnight on New Year’s Day, many champagne fueled resolutions will be made amongst clinking glasses and being showered in confetti.  Empty promises is what New Year’s resolutions typically amount to. Lies that drain your confidence and motivation the second they leave your lips because you know the real truth. You won’t follow through.

This year forego the resolutions and instead make a commitment. Make a commitment to disassociate yourself from all that is fake and bloated in the world.  Make a commitment to embrace the struggle and walk with a confidence that only comes from being willing to pay the price.

A real man in 2009…

• Trains like a warrior and oozes confidence wherever he goes
• Takes charge of his career and finally does what he REALLY wants
• Steps up his game, and learns how to talk to women
• Works less hours and spends more time with his family and friends

Train Like A Warrior

1.  Move some heavy shit. Grab the bar and lift some damn weight! How much weight?  As much weight as is physically possible for your current fitness level.  Test your one rep max regularly on all of the big lifts: deadlifts, squats and the overhead press.  As your physical strength improves, you’ll see a carry over into all areas of your life.

2.  Learn how to fight. The thought of physical violence seems so far removed from our soft existence of cell phones and Starbucks.  But it’s still there, lingering in our DNA, waiting for the right circumstances to push our button. Chuck Palahniuk, the author of Fight Club,  once said “We’re designed to be hunters, and we live in a society of shopping.”

Rather than suppress the naturally aggressive and violent parts of our nature to the point of emasculation, I say channel them into healthy outlets.  Take up boxing, Muay Thai, or Krav Maga twice per week and get comfortable with hitting and getting hit.  Not only will you learn how to deliver a knock out blow, but you’ll get in great shape and have a lot more confidence.

3.  Ditch the globo gym. Big box gyms are full of mediocrity and people just looking to socialize.  Your time in the gym should be spent busting your ass for 20-45 minutes.  Take a look around your area for a hardcore gym.  Somewhere that barbells are being thrusted and chalk is abound.  Whether this is a powerlifting gym, bodybuilding gym or some guy’s garage, surrounding yourself with dedicated lifters will do wonders for your results and motivation.

4.  Do less. When it comes to fitness training, I prefer to sticking with the basics.  Sure it’s fun to do the party tricks like one-legged squats and L-pull ups, but when it comes to getting the best results in the least amount of time, it’s always going to come back to the basics.  Same thing for your equipment choices.  Leave the complicated machinery to the boys at NASA.  Give me a barbell and some bumper plates over a pull-pin weight stack with bells and whistles any day. The barbell isn’t even necessary when comes right down to it.  Your will to train is going to take you farther than any single piece of equipment.

 

5.  Pay the price. Success is simple: determine the cost of what you want and then pay the price.  And while you’re paying the price, keep it to yourself.  No one wants to hear you bitch about how hard it is.  No matter how bad you think you have it, someone has it worse and they’re enduring it with dignity.  If you want to lose belly fat, accept your hunger pangs and near-nauseous levels of circuit training intensity with a smile.

If you want to get stronger but the only way you can get to the gym is by getting up an hour earlier, set your alarm clock without fan fare.  People are always wondering why they don’t look like the cover models on magazines.  I’ll tell ya why… those guys are the ones who are working out at 6 AM even though they feel like absolute crap.  When everyone else is pigging out on pizza, they’re eating a chicken breast with veggies.  It all comes down to how much you want it.  Determine the price and pay it.  Simple.  But simple does not mean easy.

Take Charge Of Your Career

It’s an absolute shame that 95% of men get up everyday and dread going to their job.  Why would you do this to yourself?  This is YOUR life and you only get one shot at it.  Stop spending your whole day doing shit you hate!

This is the year you need to start doing what you love!  Whether it’s a new position in your company or a totally different job, take action now.  If you’re an accountant and you’ve always REALLY wanted to be a firefighter, then get things in place NOW so that you can make the transition to being a firefighter in 3-6 months.  Stop making excuses for why you CAN’T do it and figure out how to get it done.  There’s no reason your day to day life should feel like a scene out of Office Space.

 

In 50 years there’s a good chance that you’ll be dead.  Do you really want to look back and waste your life doing something that means nothing to you?

Being a real man entails having ambition and going after what you want.

Learn How To Talk To Women

It’s time to put your ego aside.  If you’re not getting the results you want with the ladies, you need to get advice from someone who knows what they’re doing.  Guys have no problem looking for help when it comes to weight loss or handyman work, but when it comes to women we all think we know everything.  Here’s some proven tips when it comes to talking to women from the guys at LoveSystems…

 

1. Never hit on a girl until she’s attracted to you.  Most guys make a huge mistake when they approach a woman by hitting on her before she’s actually interested in the guy.  The way to fix this is to start a conversation and get her and her friends laughing and having fun. Once this happens you’ll notice her gently touching you or asking you questions.  At this point you can start to show your intentions to her.

2. Stop trying to be the “nice” guy. If you’ve ever listened to women talk about what they want in a guy, they’ll say they want a nice guy who treats them well.  BULLSHIT.  Nice guys get tossed in the friend zone quicker than anyone else.  The way to avoid this is to be the kind of guy girls are attracted to.  Guys with confidence, good body language, lots of smiling and other girls around them are wanted by all types of women.  Some of the best advice I’ve heard about how to talk to a girl is to treat her like you would your bratty little sister.  Basically tease her, joke with her, high five her and keep it fun.

3. Confidence and ambition means everything.  Think of it this way.  Guys are really attracted to good looking girls.  While girls don’t value looks as much as we do, what they really value is confidence and ambition.  Even if you don’t have a cool job, talking about your future plans and what you want to do in life is VERY attractive to women.  Girls are also extremely attracted to confidence.  If you believe in something and tell her about it, don’t go back on what you said and say you’re sorry.  Girls lose all respect for guys who aren’t confident in themselves.

4. Never buy a girl a drink until she’s into you. Have you ever walked up to a girl and asked her if you could buy her a drink?  If you have, you’re instantly putting yourself in the position that she’s of higher value than you.  You’re planting the image in her mind that you’re trying to impress her and work up to her level.  This is why you should start with a neutral conversation and once she’s attracted to you and you’re both into each other, then you can buy each other drinks.  If she asks you to buy her drink and its too early, you can say something like “Sure I will, right after you buy me one” (with a big teasing grin on your face of course!)

5. Body language is more important than what you’re saying. This is such an eye opener to most guys.  Do you ever wonder why some people just look cool and successful?  Well it’s their body language.  Some of the basics are smile a lot, make good eye contact, shoulders back, chest out and look comfortable.  Think of Wooderson in the movie Dazed and Confused.  He flat out oozes coolness and confidence.

Honestly, we could talk about this subject forever.  If you’d like to improve your game, I highly suggest checking out the guys at Love Systems.  They teach normal guys how to attract good looking women, no matter what you look like. They’ve really made a difference and have helped a lot of guys I know.

I don’t care how you do it, but be man enough to put your ego aside and finally learn how to be successful with women this year.

Work Less And Spend More Time With Your Family And Friends

Throw all your time management techniques out the window.  It’s time for stuff that actually works…

1.  Cut the fat at work and focus on the 80/20 rule

The 80/20 rule has been around for ages and is one of the most effective strategies for working less hours.  The 80/20 rule states that 20% of your actions account for 80% of the results.  So 20% of the work you do accounts for 80% of your profits or leads or whatever you’re doing…

Figure out the main 20% of your work that’s contributing the most to your job or business and focus on that.

2.  If you had to work for just 2 hours a day, what would you do?

Before you say, no way, I couldnt do that….Let’s assume that you just got out of the hospital for a heart problem and the Doctor said the only way you would continue to live was if you cut your work hours back to 2 hours per day.

What would you cut out?  What would you focus on?

If you only had 2 hours, you’d focus on the MOST important things at your job.  Do it now!

3.  Get your most important project done for the day before you check your email in the morning

Email is a time waster like no other.  When we’re bored we turn to things like email, facebook and Youtube to occupy all of our time.  This way we’re being busy, but not productive.

Busyness is the killer of all productivity in your job.  How many times per day are you just “being busy” without actually getting something done?

A good way to change this, is to get your most important task or project for the day done before you check your email in the morning. Emails can wait.  If it’s really THAT important you’ll get a phone call.

4.  Get away from the office and work from home

To learn about getting away from the office and how to convince your boss of this, I highly recommend reading Tim Ferriss’s book The 4 Hour Work Week.  Much of this post, I learned from his book and he goes into much more detail about how to get your ideal lifestyle.

By cutting down your work hours, you’ll have more time to spend with your family and friends and do things you actually want to do.

Conclusion

When everyone else is spewing their champagne tainted empty promises as the clock strikes twelve, know that this year will be different for you. You will reap the rewards as you make the commitment, pay the price, and get back to being a real man in 2009.

What are you going to do in 2009 to be a real man?  Leave a comment below.  I wanna know what you’re doing to take charge of your life…

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Live Hard!

– Vic