{"id":549,"date":"2014-09-07T19:39:05","date_gmt":"2014-09-08T02:39:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.keganv.com\/?p=549"},"modified":"2020-01-19T15:44:21","modified_gmt":"2020-01-19T22:44:21","slug":"hard-work-equals-results","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.keganv.com\/hard-work-equals-results\/","title":{"rendered":"Hard Work = Results"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3>A Four Letter Word<\/h3>\n<p>You know what I hate? Excuses, laziness, the word &#8220;can&#8217;t&#8221;. In fact, in my household, can&#8217;t is nearly considered a four letter word. The only time it should be used is when you TRULY CANNOT do something. There is a big difference between &#8220;I can&#8217;t&#8221; and &#8220;I don&#8217;t want to&#8221;.<br \/>\n<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>I think we all find it too easy to make as many excuses as needed to convince ourselves it can&#8217;t be done, whatever &#8220;it&#8221; is. What is your it? What is it that you want? Are your motivations pure and righteous? If so, it is likely that you CAN accomplish it. I say this because of the verses in John 14:13-14, but God doesn&#8217;t promise that He will do the work for you. Nope, many times His blessings require your efforts. This means you gotta get off your thumbs and get it done.<\/p>\n<h3>Set Your Goals<\/h3>\n<p>For me the things I&#8217;m always striving for are:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>A better Christ follower and giver of myself.<\/li>\n<li>A better father and husband.<\/li>\n<li>A more mentally and physically fit person.<\/li>\n<li>A better web developer.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>What are your goals? What do you want? Make a list and put it in front of your face everyday. Hang it on a wall, put it on your desk. Focus on your goals. It&#8217;s amazing what will happen.<\/p>\n<h3>Surround Yourself With Those You Admire<\/h3>\n<p>I&#8217;ve also learned that it&#8217;s best to surround yourself with others that have qualities you admire and want to have reflected in yourself. Fortunately for me I have some killer friends that keep me grounded and will tell me the hard truths when I fall out of line. You know who your real friends are by those who are willing to hurt your feelings. If you don&#8217;t have someone like this in your life, re-evaluate your relationships. Kids are also good people to ask honest questions, they&#8217;re inherently blunt and typically say things like they are. I love kids. They don&#8217;t care about being politically correct, which is something we all need.<\/p>\n<h3>Work Hard AND Work Smart<\/h3>\n<p>It&#8217;s one thing to work hard. However, all the hard work in the world might not get the results you desire if not coupled with working smart. You don&#8217;t drive nails in the wood with a hair brush. Well, you can, but it wouldn&#8217;t be a pleasant or efficient experience. I&#8217;ve learned that a huge part of working hard and smart, is efficiency!<\/p>\n<p>A couple of examples of efficiency I personally employ is <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Scrum_(software_development)\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">SCRUM\/AGILE style developing<\/a>. This style of development keeps everyone on track and making progress efficiently.<\/p>\n<p>Another example I would use relates to fitness. I like HIIT or burst style interval training coupled with weight training. The results are very effective and allows me to get in, get the work done, get results, in a relatively short amount of time, (around 25-45 minutes).<\/p>\n<h3>Conclusion<\/h3>\n<p>For me, &#8220;Work Hard, Play Hard&#8221; is an all encompassing attitude toward everything in life. Proper balance is something we all need, (especially me). Work can be very fun and rewarding too, so let&#8217;s get to work!<\/p>\n<p><!--\n\n\n<h3>Weight Loss &amp; Fitness<\/h3>\n\n\nI'm going to talk about this because it affects everyone and is probably the most mainstream universal goal. So many people struggle with weight and fitness. Billions of dollars are spent looking for that magic diet or the secret formula. There is no secret formula or magic diet. You want to know what will get you in the best shape of your life? Willpower. It all boils down to willpower. If you have willpower, you'll work hard, which will produce the results. It. is. as. simple. as. that. This doesn't just apply to fitness by the way, this applies to absolutely everything you want to achieve. Marriage, career, parenthood, whatever. WORK HARD.\n\n\n\n<h4>Learn What Your Basal Metabolic Rate Is<\/h4>\n\n\nFirst figure out what your BMR (Basal Metabolic Rate) is. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.myfitnesspal.com\/tools\/bmr-calculator\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Here is a calculator<\/a> I use that is fairly accurate. Keep in mind, the more weight you lose, the lower your BMR number!\n\n\n\n<h4>Count Your Calories<\/h4>\n\n\nCount your calories, and track them. It's extra easy to track if you use any number of free web or native apps that are out there. If you don't really work out, then you probably should not exceed your BMR until you are at your goal weight. Doing this will ensure that you are creating a caloric deficit everyday, thus burning fat. If you do work out, keep about a 20% deficit until you are at your goal weight, this is the most sustainable. This is huge, if you don't do this step, you'll fight an uphill battle. This is where a lot of willpower comes in. You may be hungry when you first start off, but you can battle this by eating high protein and fibrous foods. I've found huge meals that are crazy nutritious and low calorie that keep me full, veggies are your friend. You can do the same!\n\nDo not assume that you're eating healthy, actually look at the nutrition facts on the labels. Many times what you might think is healthy, is a wolf in sheep's clothing. Stick to lean meats like turkey, salmon and chicken breast. Eat lots of greens and vegetables, they fill you up, are great for you, and you can basically eat as much vegetables as you want with no guilt. Keep the butter, extra salt and sugar out of your food. Real fruit is great too!\n\n\n\n<h4>Workout Often<\/h4>\n\n\nI like to workout every single day. One to two days a week I keep it light as recovery days, but I still get up and move. The other five days of the week, I focus on extremely high intensity 20-30 minute workouts. That's right 20-30 minutes, not hours. YOU HAVE TIME TO WORKOUT. My goal is to keep my heart rate in the 150s or higher. Again, it comes down to willpower.\n\n\n\n<h4>Track Your Progress<\/h4>\n\n\nTake pictures of yourself to keep track of your progress, this can be huge for motivation. Share them when you feel comfortable. It's not crazy, it's motivating, and motivates others.\n\n\n\n<h3>Conclusion<\/h3>\n\n\nA picture of myself on a beach while on vacation was my \"Aha\" moment. It was the moment I said, enough is enough. I refuse to accept the lie that \"when you're old, you get fat\". What I've noticed from most people as they age, is they get complacent, comfortable and lazy. I too have driven down that road before but I don't want to go back down it, ever. My hope is that if you are reading this and know me personally, you will help keep me in check, and that you might find your \"aha\" moment as well. Again, these principals don't only apply to health and fitness alone, it is an all encompassing attitude toward everything in life. Fitness was just the example I felt most can relate to. Let's all stop lying to ourselves and get real. Let's get to work.\n--><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Four Letter Word You know what I hate? Excuses, laziness, the word &#8220;can&#8217;t&#8221;. In fact, in my household, can&#8217;t is nearly considered a four letter word. The only time it should be used is when you TRULY CANNOT do something. There is a big difference between &#8220;I can&#8217;t&#8221; and &#8220;I don&#8217;t want to&#8221;.","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-549","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-health-fitness","category-life-faith"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v20.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Hard Work Equals Results<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.keganv.com\/hard-work-equals-results\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Hard Work Equals Results\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A Four Letter Word You know what I hate? 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