Inky Johnson (28:44) – “And I think the quicker you eliminate something [such as quitting as an option], the quicker that you make up in your mind you’re gonna get to the outcome – it’s just like the Navy Seals! … They make up in their mind before they set out on a mission, ‘We are going to complete the mission.’ Meaning if it does not kill me, if I get an arm injury along the way, a leg injury along the way, a feet injury along the way, if you do not kill me you will not stop my drive. No amount of adversity will stop me; I have to complete every mission that I set out on. One of the greatest pieces of advice that my mother gave me was this: ‘Son, whatever you start you make sure you finish!’ And the problem with the world today is people get involved with things and if they don’t like a certain person, if they don’t like the process, if it’s not what they thought it was, they quit.”
Starting anything should not be taken lightly. Because it’s a guarantee that one who starts lightly will finish lightly. Meaning that if there was little commitment to a task originally, there’s little ammo to resist someone from giving up during a task. And though someone can utilize external ammo at times – money, people’s perceptions, etc. – the only ammo that’s long-lived and battle-tested lies between the ears. It’s majority mental, and unfortunately that’s why topics like this have a degree of hogwash to some people. Because too many people don’t honor their own word, value their own commitments, or seek to dominate their inner world. But one who honors commitments internally recognizes that starting something is a bold move because there is no turning back; and the energy saved from even thinking about taking a step back is the extra energy edge often necessary to complete a mission.
Inky Johnson (11:19) – “Commitment is staying true to what you said you was true to long after the mood that you said it in has left. Meaning on the days that we don’t feel like doing what we once said we was going to do, we’re gonna’ step up and we’re gonna’ do it anyway because those are the days that build character … (14:04) If you don’t got more heart than me, if you ain’t been working harder than me, if you ain’t sacrifice more than me, Imma’ destroy you. And I’m not retreating; I’m not running. I don’t care what they say on paper; I don’t care how many games you won; I don’t care if you say we’re outnumbered. We live by THIS and we die by THIS. We don’t retreat. We don’t run. Every man must search his own soul.”
Completion commitment allows someone to focus all energy on the mission at hand and not on the question, “Do I still want to complete the mission at hand?” It ties to my previous post Go Hard or Go Home, No In Between, which stresses the idea of going hard at everything undertaken and not wasting energy on considering one’s effort level. Though, note that one must be aware of and fight aggressively against the potential downfalls of this “finish what is started” mentality – procrastinating upon the starting line knowing there’s no turning back and setting mediocre goals to guarantee completion. The battle strategy is simply experience, putting yourself in perhaps smaller challenging missions and building the mental competence to undertake bigger missions after that. When this mentality is perfected, a drive is unleashed that pays no mind to the obstacles or cost along the journey. All it knows is there’s fuel.
Eric Thomas (3:20) – “You can’t count the cost. When you want something bad, you can’t count the cost because if you count the cost and you see how much it costs, you might quit, you might give up so you got to go in knowing that I don’t count the cost. I do as many push-ups as it takes, as many sit-ups as it takes, as many reps as it takes; I study as long as it takes. I pay whatever the price is; Why? Because if I start counting the cost I might quit, I might give up. Don’t count the cost!”