Raise Your Game

Raise Your Game delves into the philosophy of peak performance presented by a former basketball coach who achieved success by focusing on self-awareness, discipline, and a series of virtues.

One of the main ideas of this book revolves around self-awareness. The author praises knowing thyself as the single, most important first step in your journey towards success. Without a clear starting point, there’s no way to tell what to improve. Just like with Google Maps, where you start your journey from the current location, self-awareness begins within.

To become self-aware, you’ll have to do a thorough introspection and answer the essential aspects of your life. Questions like what are your biggest strengths, what are you good at, and what’s your purpose and true desires on earth – are all excellent starting points.

Without consistency in your actions, your efforts will be in vain. Set a standard, work hard to achieve it, and even surpass it. Working on yourself is one of the highest forms of self-respect and self-love, so putting as many hours into that as possible will build your mind, body, and soul.

No one needs to know that you’ve embarked on a quest to find yourself and develop your best persona. Truthfully, that’s your journey to fulfill and it’ll take you plenty of lonely time and long hours to get there. Therefore, start by practicing self-awareness and once you’ve established an objective, work restlessly to achieve it.

Comparison is the mother of doubt, and it makes us feel miserable. No matter who you are, you’ll always find someone prettier, smarter, more musculus, younger, and richer than you. And the list goes on. Even if it’s not true, our biased consciousness will never play things out in our favor, so comparing will eventually lead to self-doubt.

Embarking on that train is not a fun trip, and it sure does take away a lot of time and energy that you could put into your goals. Remember how important self-awareness is? Well, it also includes knowing where you stand and accepting it. By acknowledging that we are at a given point in life, we can start working on ourselves and be better.

However, comparing your situation with someone else’s will only slow down your goals, with no added benefit whatsoever. Self-doubt is a toxic trait of humans and it holds us back from achieving our highest potential because even if we compare, it’ll never help us become the subject of our envy. The cure? Cultivating your virtues. The first one is self-awareness, and then, there’s confidence.