Don’t let it paralyze you.
If you failed to do something through inaction, hesitation, or indecision, remember the feeling of regret it left in your gut.
Not to punish yourself or
Another opportunity of some kind will come your way, and you’ll feel hesitant or indecisive again. But if you remember the regret you felt the last time, you’ll realize how much better you’ll feel this time if you act.
Use it to make better decisions in the future.
Thanks to our school systems, our parents, and our bosses, we tend to default to a “100” mindset. We look at everything we should or have done from this framing: “how far from 100 am I?”
How far from perfect is my effort or my attempt?
It’s incredibly unhealthy and unhelpful for making progress or creating change.
So you didn’t attend the protests yesterday? What have you done instead?
Maybe you’ve written tons of letters, made dozens of phone calls to your representatives, and encouraged others to do the same. That’s more than most, so you can comfortably give yourself at least a 75/100.
You didn’t eat perfectly cooked meals that align with your macros to the thousandth decimal place or get in your intensive, tactical workout to help you look like Thor?
Who cares? Did you eat some vegetables? Did you go for a walk or do yoga? You did a lot more than nothing.
Instead of looking at everything starting from 100, why not consider how far away you are from 0?
It’s not just incrementally better, it’s infinitely better!
Doing something, however small or seemingly insignificant, is uncalculably better than doing nothing at all.
Or lack thereof.
You don’t need a better tool. You need a better system. Or you need a clearer outcome.
You think the next new software will solve your work overload. But the reality is that only good workflows that you design for yourself can do that. Software can’t help until you have that down.
You think that the next workout program or supplement will finally help you get a “ripped” body. However, neither of those matters if you don’t have a clear vision for what you actually want, or you can’t execute the boring and simple habits consistently over a long period.
It’s rarely the lack of the right tool that’s the problem anymore. Most of the time, it’s a lack of appropriate systems.
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