I heard Tony LaRussa say it many times, “When in doubt…ATTACK.” Dan Gable lived by the often repeated motto, “ATTACK, ATTACK, ATTACK,” and General George Patton famously said, “ATTACK, always ATTACK.” They may use different words to communicate it, but the mentality is the same, and all highly successful people have it. I am referring to the “attack mentality.”
Most people begin the New Year a little sloppy and slow. Over the holidays, people have a tendency to eat and drink a little more than usual and get away from the normal productive routine.
This isn’t the place for a health lecture, but if you can commit 90 days to two physical rules, you’ll find yourself positioned to have a significant increase in energy and purpose. You’ll be positioning yourself to ATTACK.
- Limit alcohol and avoid drug use. If you do need to drink, limit your drinking to 2 drinks or less daily.
- Complete 30 minutes of cardiovascular exercise during which your heart rate averages 130 beats per minute, four times a week minimum.
As you maneuver through those 90 days, increase the expectations you have of yourself and your performance–not in everything you do, but rather in just one specific aspect of your job. It doesn’t matter if you’re playing center for the Los Angeles Lakers or stocking shelves at Wal-Mart.
If you’re the basketball center, you can decide that boxing out your man whenever a shot goes up is going to be your religion. Nobody is going to care more about getting defensive rebounds than you. It will become your focus and your workman’s pride.
At Wal-Mart, you might challenge yourself to be the most efficient and precise shelf-stocker in your store, and come up with your own metric for measuring that goal. Your care and pride will become your motivation, even if you feel the task is “beneath” you for the time being. The key is to get serious about one thing and to have the expectation that you will work to reach your potential at that one thing.
People with the “attack mentality” have higher expectations of themselves than everyone else. They always have the goal to be consistently improving at something–not at everything, but always at least that one thing. Developing this higher expectation at your one thing will force your attack mentality to develop over time. The focus here should not be on whether or not you actually are the best, but rather are you relentless about improving toward reaching that goal. When you force yourself to experience the obsession for improvement, it shows you care and ignites passion.
Take a moment and answer 1 question: What is the one thing within your current position you can set a goal to become the absolute best?
To develop your attack mentality, commit to taking five minutes to totally attack your one thing. You will be shocked at how far just five minutes daily will go toward replacing “sloppy and slow” with READY TO ATTACK.