For most of us, daily life is defined by a series of constant decisions. Should I wake up at 5:30 a.m. to hit the gym, or hit snooze and sleep until 7, only to spend the rest of the day regretting it? Do I approach Legislator X or Legislator Y to champion a difficult policy issue? From the mundane to the high stakes, the mental load of constant decision-making can be overwhelming.
Trevor Moawad’s book, It Takes What It Takes, offers an interesting alternative. Rather than viewing success as the result of endless micro-decisions, Moawad challenges the entire concept of choice in the pursuit of excellence.
Moawad — who sadly passed away in 2021 after a battle with cancer — was a renowned mental performance coach. He worked with elite athletes, teams, and leaders, helping them strengthen their mental approach to high performance. His core message was as clear as it was uncompromising:
Success doesn’t care how you feel. It doesn’t wait for perfect timing. If you want to win in life or competition, you must be willing to do what’s required, every time.
In other words: It takes what it takes.
This mindset strips emotion from the equation. Whether you’re tired, stressed, or uninspired, the standard remains the same. Success isn’t about feeling motivated — it’s about consistently doing the work, regardless of how you feel. It’s not personal. It’s a process.
Rather than idolizing discipline as a constant series of strong-willed choices, he reframes it: there are no choices in success. You do what’s required — period. The decision is already made, not in the moment, but in your commitment to the goal. The more you reduce daily decisions, the more energy you preserve for execution.
Moawad’s approach helps eliminate the mental friction that derails so many people: the internal negotiations, the rationalizations, the self-doubt. When you stop debating whether to take action — and simply take it — you free your mind to focus fully on performance.
In a world flooded with advice on “choosing the right mindset” or “making better decisions,” Moawad flips the script: the best performers don’t make better decisions — they make fewer of them. They commit to the process and eliminate the distraction of choice.
