Be A One-Footer

Huh? What’s Matt on about now? A “one-footer?”

I was watching a Brendon Burchard video where he was talking about limiting beliefs and how they don’t really limit us, unless we focus on them to the exclusion of other thoughts. It got to me to thinking.

There are people that drive their cars with one foot on the brake and one on the accelerator, all the time. Even when they are not braking, they rest their foot on the brake. If you’ve ever been behind someone and thought their brake light was stuck on, this is likely what’s happening.

The problem is: 1) they are always activating the brakes (because they are actuated by hydraulics) to some degree and 2) they are stuck in a mode of having to modulate two disparate acts whenever they want to slow down or speed up (mentally this is taxing, even if they don’t realize it).

It’s much better to just use one foot. I drive a standard and the only thing I use my left foot for is the clutch. My right foot is either on the accelerator or the brake (or neither, like when I have the cruise control on). So, I’m either accelerating or I’m braking. There’s no ambiguity.

So it can be with our thoughts, especially our beliefs.

If you’re always driving around with your foot on the brake you’re likely creating (some measure of) constant drag. But if you only use the one foot for both braking and accelerating you’re doing one or the other. And that’s the critical bit.

In life we need both the accelerator and the brake, but mostly the accelerator. When we largely focus on moving forward, our lives work. Yes, sometimes we need to slow down, maybe even stop, but then we always get going again.

Needless drag is just that. When you drive, just use the one foot (it’s safer too!) and do the same in life: brake when you need to, don’t when you don’t.