Number two, master your crossroads moments.

Throughout your day, you’re faced with dozens of brief, decisive moments. You know exactly what I’m talking about. It’s the split second when you’re deciding what you’re going to do next. You finish one task, and now there’s a choice. Do you pick up your phone and start scrolling? Or do you start doing something you know you need to do?

There are two paths at every crossroads. The easy path, which leads to distraction, comfort, procrastination. It feels good for a few seconds or a minute. And then the right path, the work that actually leads you to your dreams. It might feel hard, and then it feels incredible.

Here’s the thing that many people don’t realize. The hard part only takes a few seconds. It’s the moment it takes to decide, “I’m going to do it. I’m going to do the right thing.” And you close your laptop, or you turn off the TV, or you put your phone or device down.

Once you make that decision, once you stand up and start moving, the hard part is over. You’re already doing it. You’re already in motion.

I have a phrase I say to myself, and I want you to try it right now. Say it out loud wherever you are:

Focused action resist.
Focused action resist.

You win those one-second battles, and you win the day.

Don’t lie to yourself.

This might be one of the most powerful concepts I know, and it’s about judging yourself against your own standards.

Think about this. You want to be a hardworking person who doesn’t squander their life on distraction. So you tell yourself, “I’m a hardworking person. I do the right things. I pay attention to the important things. I’m not wasting my life.”

But here’s the catch. If you say that to yourself, you want it to be true. And if you claim you’re hardworking, but you’re sitting there avoiding the important hard things for fleeting impulsive distractions, you’re a liar. You’re lying to yourself. And you don’t want to be a liar.

I know that sounds harsh, but it’s meant to, because this is one of the most effective self-accountability tools I’ve ever found. Nobody wants to be dishonest with themselves. When you frame it that way—am I living up to what I claim to be?—it cuts through all the excuses.

Think about it like being a superhero. You do more than wear the costume. You have to act heroically for the greater good. Your reputation is what others think of you, but your character is who you truly are, even when no one’s watching.

Be your own hero.

When you act according to your values, you feel stronger. You feel powerful. And when you give into your impulses, you feel weaker. You know it. You feel it every time.

Choose strength.

Have faith in the seeds you plant.

Humans have a superpower that animals don’t have. We can work for a future result that we can’t yet see. An animal lives moment to moment, but we have the ability to choose to sacrifice today for a better tomorrow. That’s an incredible gift.

True life success isn’t like luck. It’s not like digging up gold bars in your backyard. It’s not instant. It’s more like farming. You dig the hole, you plant the seed, you water it for weeks and months, and you might not see anything for a long time.

You usually won’t feel like you’re getting better every day. In fact, and this is important, you will often feel stuck or even like things are getting worse. That’s when many people quit. They see nothing growing and they think this isn’t working.

But underneath, the roots are spreading. The growth is happening. You just can’t see it yet.

The people who quit are the people who stop watering before the plant breaks through the soil. You have to trust that if you do the work, the result will come. It always does for the people who never quit.

That’s maturity. The ability to think about your future self, not just your present comfort.

Plant the seeds, water them, and have faith in the process.

Okay, so all this Terminator talk, the discipline, the grind, the relentless forward motion—it can sound exhausting. How do we make it fun?

Create a simple checklist. Write down the habits you need to hit every day. And every day you do your task, even for just a minute or 5 minutes, check that box.

This is where the magic happens. You want to protect the streak. Once you get a streak going—1 day, 3 days, 7 days, 30 days—it becomes incredibly powerfully motivating. Your streak becomes a prized possession. You look at that streak of a 100 days or more and think to yourself, there’s absolutely no way I’m breaking this.

Seinfeld talked about this. He put a big red X on his calendar every day he wrote a new joke or new material. His only rule: don’t break the chain. After a few days, you’ve got a chain, and your only job is not to break it.

And here’s the secret to getting started. Start absurdly small. Commit to doing that important thing for just one minute, for one day. That’s it. 1 minute. Then do it again tomorrow. And then do it the next day.

Don’t worry about perfection. Don’t think big. Think small. Don’t worry about doing it great. Just get into the routine. Build the habit first.

You can accomplish big things with small steps. A journey of a,000 miles begins with a single step. Sometimes the hardest part is just getting going.

Start now. Today.

The do not do list.

Now, I know what some of you are thinking. This all sounds great, but I’m busy. I have work, family, obligations. I don’t have time to add more things to my plate.

Now, if you claim you don’t have time for something that’s truly important to you, I have a question for you. Look at your phone screen time. How much time did you spend on social media this week? How much time spent on games? How much time scrolling through stuff that doesn’t move your life forward in any way?

If the answer is anything other than 0 minutes, you have time you can discover. You just have to choose to use it differently.

So here’s the practical solution. You need a do not do list. Most people make a to-do list, things they add, but they never make a list of things to stop doing. And that’s just as important and maybe more important.

To add a new positive habit, pick something to stop doing. Be willing to sacrifice. Maybe it’s cutting out unhealthy food or drinks. Maybe it’s deleting distracting apps from your phone.

Maybe it’s making the decision to stop giving attention or emotional energy to something that’s completely out of your control, drama that doesn’t involve you, arguments that lead nowhere.

Eliminate the things that are incompatible with the person you want to become and the life you want to lead. Jettison non-essentials. Be relentless about it. You can do it.

So here’s what I want you to do right now. Not tomorrow, not next week, right now.

Sit down and decide your why. Why is this important to you? Do you want to prove to yourself that you can change? Do you want to make your family proud? Do you want to overcome a challenge that’s been holding you back for years?

Make a commitment and write it down where you can see it. Put it on your mirror. Put it on your desk. Put it on your phone wallpaper. And wake up tomorrow and take the first step. Don’t ask yourself if you feel like it. Do it.

Be the Terminator. Be your own force.

I put everything into a free guide called the Discipline of Doing, How the Terminator Mindset can Transform your Life. It goes deeper on all six of these principles. It’s something you can keep with you, where you can see it every day as a reminder.

Head on over to bagpipelessons.com/terminator and download it for free. I’ll put the link in the description below.

If this resonated with you, hit that subscribe button and turn on notifications. I put out new videos every week, and I’d love to have you here for the next one.

And head over to bagpipelessons.com/learn.

I’ve got hundreds of free videos and downloadable guides and resources. The link is in the description below.

And if you’re serious about taking things to the next level in your bagpiping, check out my Inner Circle membership at bagpipelessons.com/membership.

The Inner Circle is my online school. You get weekly live Zoom classes with me. You get access to hundreds of hours of videos and lessons and tunes and more. And a private community of people from around the world are working together to get better.

Every live class is recorded. So if you can’t make them live, you can watch on your own time, at your own pace.

Thanks again for watching.

Download the guide and get started today. Not tomorrow. Today.

Happy piping.