Know Exactly What You Want

The alpha male is a leader who finds ways to get what he wants in life. At the same time he enthusiastically helps other people get what they want. Those key distinctions are what separate leaders from followers.

To become a more effective leader, you must decide exactly what you really want from every situation you encounter, make decisions about that quickly and confidently and practice the skill on a continual basis. Before you can effectively lead other people, you must know how to effectively lead your own life—and that process begins by knowing exactly what you want.

In his most powerful and confident mental state, the alpha male decides what he wants, plans a course of action and tenaciously finds a way to make it happen. Other people may think that the alpha male’s result-driven way of thinking and doing comes naturally to him. It is, however, an acquired skill that he’s practiced for years. What was once a deliberate plan of attack is now a subconscious habit.

That’s encouraging news for you if you already know that you must improve this area of your life. With effort and time, you too can make the alpha male’s mind-set your own. You too can take action and get what you really want.

You must ask yourself what you want before every situation you encounter even begins. That will help you make the best use of your effort and time. It must become your normal thinking process before you begin simple short-term activities, complex long-term tasks and everything in between.

It’s a big mistake when people just “show up” and merely hope that things turn out well. What chance do they really have of controlling the outcome? You can’t just wake up in the morning and hope the day turns out to be productive without knowing exactly what will make it productive. You can’t just arrive at the gym and hope that your weight-training or cardio session will be great without knowing exactly what will make it great before you step into the building. You can’t just show up at your job the first day, do only what you’re told and hope that you’ll eventually get a promotion without knowing that’s what you want to work toward. Although it’s possible to have a great time with a friend without much thought, your chances will improve dramatically if you take 10 seconds to determine what will make a great time before your visit begins.

Make sure you’re asking yourself what you really want and not settling for what you think you can get. That’s another major difference between an alpha male and a beta man.

Replace the “I wonder what I could get out of this situation” mentality with “What do I really want in this situation?” That may seem like a slight difference, but there is a massive difference between the two approaches.

Don’t just sit wherever the hostess at the restaurant chooses to seat you. If you see a table that you really want by the window and it’s empty, ask for it! If it’s too cold in the meeting room, ask the person in charge if the temperature can be turned up a little. If a person at the gym is next to the heavier dumbbells and isn’t using them, politely ask to switch places. Don’t just take what’s dished out to you in the game of life. Ask for what you really want. You’ll discover that most of the time, other people will happily oblige.

Beta males always compromise, even when a compromise isn’t necessary. That’s a natural and very logical approach that they mistakenly believe is being fair to both parties involved. They’ll think, I really want this. It would be awesome if it worked out that way, but I bet that they’ll only give me that. I’ll suggest a compromise that’s somewhere between.

Most of the time all they need to do is ask for what they really want. They’d probably get it. Instead they wonder why they never seem to get what they want in life. There’s no mystery here. Those are the mediocre results they negotiated for, and they’re certainly not happening by accident.

The alpha male makes decisions quickly and confidently. You too must learn to be quick and decisive when identifying what you really want as you strive to become a more effective leader.

You learn how to make quick and confident decisions by making as many of them as possible. It doesn’t matter how big or small the decisions are. If your superior at work asks you how an important project is going to turn out, quickly and confidently tell him what you think. If you’re eating at a restaurant with a group of friends and the waitress asks what you want to order, make your decision the same way. There’s nothing more appealing and charismatic than a man who can make decisions. And, gentlemen, there is probably nothing more unappealing and unattractive than a man who labors over the simplest decisions.

As with building muscle through exercise in the gym, you build your decision-making muscle the more you make decisions. What if you jump into the decision-making mode and make some bad choices? You can always adjust them or make entirely new ones later or when you have more information. You can’t be afraid to make decisions if you want to become a more effective leader. And you can never make a decision based on fear. Any such decision is the wrong one.

That’s another key difference between alpha and beta males. Less-dominant males collect massive amounts of information before making any decision. They invest a lot of time in the process of deciding. If a decision they’ve made doesn’t turn out to be the best one, they take themselves through the entire process all over again, collecting even more information and investing even more valuable time.

The more decisions you make, the greater your chances for more victories. In life, the number of victories you experience—not the percentage of victories compared to losses—will eventually get you where you want to go.

Less-dominant males are overly concerned with how many “losses” they will suffer and with how that might affect their more fragile egos and how bad they might look in other people’s eyes. It greatly hinders their decision-making ability.

As with most of the things that you do in life, you can always operate at a higher, more accomplished and more proficient level. The higher that level, the greater the rewards you enjoy. Taking your “knowing exactly what you really want mind-set” to the next level is no exception.

Editor’s note: Six-time national-champion bodybuilder and success coach Skip La Cour is the creator of MANformation, a powerful personal-development and fitness program for men that is based on the qualities and actions of the world’s most powerful, influential and charismatic men. It is a structured series of alpha leadership strategies for transforming you into the man you really want to be. It doesn’t matter where you are in your life right now, what you have achieved so far or your age. The MANformation program will help you become a better version of you—step-by-step and one strategy at a time. To learn more about the MANformation personal-development program, visit www.MANformation.com. Sign up for the free weekly e-newsletter, and you’ll get a free alpha leadership e-book.