Get After It

Too many people these days allow themselves to become distracted. There are numerous different things that divert our attention from the pressing and important issues on our plate. We have our phones, which we check every five minutes. When we’re not on our phones, we’re on our laptops surfing the web, or mindlessly watching the newest episode of some show on Netflix.

The premise of this week’s article is to stop wasting time and Get After It. It’s three simple words that should motivate you to increase your level of productivity. Most of us hate Mondays. It’s the start of the week, you’re tired from the weekend, and the last thing you want to do is wake up for work or for class.

Mondays shouldn’t be the most hated day of the week: they should be everyone’s favorite day. It should be our favorite day because it’s the start of Gettin’ After It. You have the whole week to look forward to being as productive as you can be. This means not sitting by idly while you waste time complaining about how much you hate Mondays.

Idle time is wasted time. There is no better time to start to Get After It than right now. If you look at all the most successful people in the world, there’s one trait they commonly share. It’s their ability to set goals and accomplish those goals in a timely manner. They don’t achieve those goals by sitting back and waiting for something to happen, they take action.

Taking action isn’t just doing something, its being ready for any opportunity that presents itself to you. Many of us, including myself, miss countless opportunities because we weren’t ready or we weren’t prepared to see these opportunities. This causes us to look back retroactively and think, “If I had only known that then, I would be golden right now.”

One way to counteract this hindsight paradigm is to always be in business mode when you’re in public. That means your mindset from the moment you wake up has to be ‘time to Get After It.’ One of the easiest ways to do this is by dressing for success.

In any situation the one thing you have complete control over is your appearance. That’s why if you truly want to Get After It, make sure you are put together well. This doesn’t mean wearing a suit everyday. However, it does mean looking like you mean business from the moment you step out of your room for the day.

It may seem obvious, but it gets overlooked all the time. One of the first things anyone notices when meeting someone is how they look. Your appearance is a direct reflection of you as an individual. Do you look sloppy and messy? Or are you looking fresh and clean?

You only get one chance to make a first impression, so that’s why the first impression has to be the best impression.

All of this leads back to having a mindset that being unprepared is a wasted opportunity. It draws on a person’s ability to be ready for whatever, and actively seeking prospects that will lead to success. If you’re ready for anything, you are increasing your chances of being exposed to things that can positively affect your life.

There’s a quote from a former coach of mine that has always resonated with me in regards to Gettin’ After It. He would always tell us, “Yesterday you said Tomorrow,” meaning that yesterday you said tomorrow you would make a change. I think it’s a great idea to live by, because it allows us to be accountable for the commitments we make to ourselves.

It’s not hard to do. Any and everyone has the capacity to achieve optimum productivity. All it comes down to is a matter of effort. Do you care enough to be the best representation of yourself everyday? If you don’t, then this isn’t for you, and you can keep living how you’ve been living. Or you can Get After It every single day and see how much more productive and successful you are. The choice is and has always been yours, it’s just a matter of if you want it bad enough.

So if you’re reading this, I’d like to leave you with some of my own words of wisdom: instead of making a change tomorrow, make it today because tomorrow IS today, and there’s no better day to Get After It.

-Mark Siatta