You Should Spend More Time Doing Nothing — That’s When You Actually Grow

Better Living 

 

 

“Slow is smooth, and smooth is fast.”

Alan Trapulionis

Sep 24 · 4 min read

Naval Ravikant may not be a billionaire, but he is successful by my standards. Why? Because, at 47, he smiles more than my 7-year-old brother.

Naval has had a pretty busy life. He’s the founder and ex-CEO of AngelList, reportedly a $100+ million company. He has invested early stage in over 200 companies, including Uber and Twitter. And yet, after an intense career in Palo Alto, the man remains a beacon of inner peace and common sense.

One question he asked completely annihilated my understanding of mindfulness:

“If you’re so smart and capable, why can’t you figure out how to be happy?”

The founder says it’s hard, nowadays, for him to be around other people. Or, rather, it’s hard for them to be around him. See, they’re not used to a person who is always smiling.

You have 4,906 unread emails.

My summer was pretty exhausting. Not because I accomplished a lot — but because I was always doing something. I wake up, I brush my teeth, I eat the sandwich, I get to work, I call a friend, I watch a show, I go to sleep.

I made zero progress this summer. I didn’t advance in my career. I didn’t create anything remotely interesting. I didn’t form any lasting relationships. I didn’t even have any life-changing epiphanies. It was all just a series of things that I did. It all feels like a boring dream I’m about to forget.

Naval Ravikant spent his summer differently. In fact, he lives his entire life differently.

“I almost hate calling it meditation. […] It’s literally just walking around.”

What does Naval understand that I don’t? Why does one of my heroes spend time deliberately doing nothing, “paying attention to his own thoughts?”

I decided to copy his approach. I deliberately made time in my day when I’m doing absolutely nothing. The rule was I’m allowed to drink tea or listen to music, but I’m not allowed to do anything “productive,” “useful”, “educational” or “entertaining.” No breathing techniques, just idleness.

The results were very interesting. It was weird and uncomfortable at first, as you could expect. My brain was constantly looking for a way to distract itself. I think I started reading the bread label at one point. It has quite a bit of sugar, if you didn’t know.

But then, something magical happened. For the first time in a long time, I started having thoughts. Not procedural instructions. Not plans. Not dreams. Thoughts. Words, glued together, forming a dialogue. I could hear it again.

I could feel my brain working, too. In fact, it was working much harder than it’s used to during work hours. Even when I wasn’t thinking anything, the engines were buzzing.

Naval compares this process to clearing out your “mental inbox.”

“When you grow up, all this stuff happening to you in your life. And some of it you’re processing, and some of it you should probably think more about, but you don’t. It’s like your email inbox, piling up. Email after email after email.”

He’s not just talking about unprocessed trauma. He’s talking about unprocessed stuff. Stuff that forms your judgements and fuels your motivations. Stuff from 20, 30 years ago that drives your choices today.

The only way to clear out your inbox, Naval says, is by “doing nothing” and simply letting your mind flow.

He calls it “self-therapy.” Instead of paying a therapist to listen to you, you act as your own therapist. Eventually, you answer all of the “emails,” catch up to reality, and achieve a state of calm and clarity.

Of course, it’s dangerous to link subconscious mechanisms to tangible results. We don’t know how it all works down there. But I am now convinced that humans were designed to spend a significant part of their lives completely alone with their thoughts, unstimulated. Doing the contrary is the equivalent of depriving yourself of an essential nutrient.

Harry Styles won’t save you

We’ve become obsessed with breathing techniques and narrated meditation apps, but perhaps we’re missing the key lesson of two over-stimulated decades: less is more when it comes to your to-do list.

Productivity means you’ll finish an article quicker. Mental clarity means you’ll know what to write, and whether you should write at all.

Productivity means you’ll get home sooner. Mental clarity means you’ll get home happy.

Productivity means you’ll squeeze an extra workout into the week. Mental clarity means you’ll feel relaxed, energetic and radiant by default.

Productivity (usually) means you’ll do 10 hours of mediocre work. Mental clarity means you’ll do 1 hour of extraordinary work.

Productivity might burn you out, so you’ll ask Harry Styles to narrate you a bedtime story to fall asleep. Mental clarity means you’ll fall asleep when it’s time.

Productivity is the “how” of the “how.” It’s a mechanical problem of how to get somewhere faster. Mental clarity is the compass showing you where you’re supposed to be going.

I’m not saying productivity isn’t important. I’m saying it’s not the answer. Not for your happiness, not for your performance. Because, as Naval put it,

“We live in an age of infinite leverage. Your actions can be multiplied a thousand-fold, either by broadcasting a podcast, or by investing capital, or by having people work for you, or writing code. Because of that, the impacts of good decision-making are much higher than they used to be.”

Written by

Alan Trapulionis

In quest of understanding how humans work.

3 Psychological Reasons You’re Always Anxious

Anxiety 

 

Let them go and peace of mind will follow

 

Photo by engin akyurt on Unsplash

 

Nick Wignall

Sep 8 · 7 min read

We all get anxious from time to time. But living with chronic anxiety is another thing entirely…

• Constantly worrying about the future and imagining the worst
• Never being fully present in conversations because you’re always worried about what the other person is thinking of you
• Feeling tense, on-edge, and exhausted all the time
• Dreading that your next panic attack is just around the corner
• Constantly second-guessing yourself, seemingly unable to make even small decisions confidently

While there are obviously many things that lead us to feel anxious, here’s the key insight most people miss:

Whatever caused your anxiety in the past, it’s your habits in the present that are maintaining it.

If you can learn to identify these anxiety-producing habits in your life, you can work to undo them and eventually free yourself from constant worry and chronic anxiety.

1. Avoiding uncertainty

It’s human nature to want to avoid feeling uncertain. When you first show up to a dinner party, for example, you quickly scan the room for someone you know, then gravitate toward them.

Of course, there’s a good reason for this: Our ancestors who were better at minimizing uncertainty probably survived longer than the ones who weren’t afraid of it. In other words…

We’re wired by evolution to prefer the familiar and safe to the uncertain and potentially dangerous.

But even in modern life, it’s often good to minimize or avoid uncertainty:

• Not sure if your upcoming presentation is going to be received well? Practice in front of a few friends and get feedback on the parts that don’t work so well.
• Not sure if the person you’ve been dating for two months is “the one”? Maybe date a little longer and reduce some of that uncertainty.

But here’s the thing: While we are all wired to avoid uncertainty, and frequently benefit from doing so, it’s a mistake to get in the habit of alwaysavoiding it… After all, what kind of a life is it if you never take risks, never try new things, or never push yourself outside your comfort zone?

Unfortunately, it gets worse… Aside from your life becoming increasingly boring and uneventful, there’s an even bigger problem here:

Avoiding uncertainty gives relief from anxiety in the short-term, but it intensifies it in the long-term.

Here’s a simple example:

• A good friend texts you and invites you to a dinner party she’s hosting. But after hearing that most of the other guests will be people you don’t know, you begin to feel anxious.
• You worry about feeling awkward and uncomfortable explaining your boring job, for instance. You dread the idea of small-talk and superficial get-to-know-you chatter.
• The more you think about it, the more anxious you feel.
• At this point, the option to decline and make up a white lie about a previous engagement is getting pretty tempting because not only would it save you the potential anxiety of an awkward dinner party with people you don’t know (uncertainty!), but it would also immediately alleviate all the anxiety you’re feeling right now.
• So you text your friend that you won’t be able to make it. And sure enough, you immediately feel relieved.

The problem here is that while you’ve escaped uncertainty and anxiety in the present, you’ve actually made it more likely that you’ll feel anxious in the future.

Here’s how it works…

The fear center in your brain is always on the lookout for danger. And when it spots something, it makes you a little anxious (physiologically, anxiety is just adrenaline and your fight or flight system activating).

But critically, it also watches how you respond to that initial threat and hit of anxiety:

1. Escape. Do you confirm your fear center’s initial assessment that the uncertainty of the dinner party is a threat to your survival by trying to escape it? If so, you will feel less anxious in the moment. But you’ve taught your brain that dinner parties with unfamiliar people are a threat to your survival. Which means the next time a similar opportunity shows up, you’re going to feel even more anxious and be more tempted to avoid it. See where this vicious cycle is going…?
2. Approach. Or, you could dis-confirm your fear center’s initial assessment that the uncertainty of the dinner party is a threat by approaching it and going anyway, which would give your brain valuable feedback that just because it feels uncomfortable doesn’t mean it literally is dangerous. And while this might make you more anxious in the short-term, your brain would be less anxious the next time a situation like this came up. See where this virtuous circle is going… ?

Here’s the take-home message:

Avoiding uncertainty leads to short-term relief and long-term anxiety. Welcoming uncertainty leads to short-term anxiety and long-term confidence.

Choose wisely.

2. Avoiding helplessness

If there’s one thing human beings tend to avoid more than uncertainty it’s helplessness.

We absolutely hate feeling helpless.

For example:

• Feeling scared that your upcoming interview won’t go well and not being able to do anything about it now that it’s almost here.
• Being afraid of your son’s first airplane flight alone and not being able to do anything about it.
• Hearing your spouse talk about how depressed they’ve been feeling and knowing that you can’t make them feel better.

Of course, like uncertainty, some amount of helplessness is unavoidable in life because we just can’t control everything (and everyone). But here’s the thing: The urge to try and control the uncontrollable is surprisingly strong.

So strong, in fact, that we end up doing some surprisingly irrational and harmful things in order to maintain the illusion of control:

• You build up excessively high expectations for people in your life because, hey, if I can’t make them do well, telling myself that they should do well feels kinda close….
• You get overly involved in other people’s lives even though they’ve asked you not to (and it stresses you out).
• You replay mistakes and regrets in your head over and over again because even though you know intellectually that you can’t change the past, ruminating on it at least feels like you’re doing something productive and not totally helpless.

With a little self-reflection, you can probably think of many areas in your life where you try to control something that’s actually not under your control.

But there’s one big form of unhelpful (and anxiety-producing) control that most people miss:

You worry about things you can’t control because it temporarily makes you feel in control.

By definition, worry is unhelpful negative thinking about hypothetical or future problems. And as every chronic worrier will admit to, it leads to A LOT of anxiety. In fact, as I’ve made the case before, worry is the engine of anxiety.

But what’s weird about worry is that often when you’re worrying, you probably know intellectually that it’s not actually helpful. And that it’s only making you anxious and stressed.

And yet, you keep worrying… Why?

Well, just like we tend to eat junk food despite knowing that it’s bad for us, we worry because for a few brief minutes or seconds it feels good.

Worrying gives us something to do and makes us feel in control when we would otherwise feel helpless.

And because worry is so similar to problem-solving and planning, it’s easy to rationalize it. But in the end, worry is all side-effects and no benefit: It makes you incredibly anxious and doesn’t actually fix anything.

But because it temporarily feels good, we get addicted to it. Because it temporarily alleviates that terrible feeling of helplessness, we come back to it over and over again despite all the anxiety it generates.

Which is all to say that if you want to feel less anxious, you must learn to control your worry habit.

3. Avoiding boundary-setting

One of the most subtle but powerful causes of chronic anxiety is unhealthy boundaries:

• Always saying yes to your manager’s request to do “a little” extra work over the weekend
• Always “going with the flow” and agreeing to what your spouse wants to do for vacation
• Always answering your sister’s phone calls and listening to her vent and complain about her toxic relationship

I mean, think about it:

If you’re constantly taking on other people’s problems, and never have time to address your own wants and needs, how could you not be anxious!

But if it’s so obvious that unhealthy boundaries lead to anxiety, why do we struggle so much to set healthy boundaries?

While there are many, many reasons, one of the most important is this:

You struggle to set boundaries because you’re afraid to communicate assertively.

Now, a lot of people hear the term assertive and they think rude or pushy. But in reality, assertive communication is the healthy middle ground between aggressive and passive.

• Aggressive communication is when you try to get what you want but in a way that’s rude and disrespectful to others.
• Passive communication is when you’re disrespectful to your own wants and needs because you’re overly concerned with and accommodating of other people.
• Assertive communication means asking for what you want and saying no to what you don’t want in a way that’s respectful to yourself and the other person.

This isn’t the time or place to get into all of the nuances of how to be more assertive. But what’s key to realize is this:

If you’re unwilling to stand up for yourself, you’ll be unable to maintain healthy boundaries. And without healthy boundaries, your anxiety will skyrocket.

If you want to start feeling less anxious all the time, practice communicating assertively.

Are You Swimming With or Against the Current of Life?

The Current of Life 

The story of the green sea turtle

Photo by Wexor Tmg on Unsplash

Niklas Göke

May 10·6 min read

In his book The Cafe on the Edge of the World, John Strelecky tells the story of a man in a hurry.

The man, a busy professional also named John, is stuck in a massive traffic jam en route to his much needed vacation. When he tries to circumvent the roadblock, he gets lost and, running out of fuel, energy, and growing ever hungrier, turns in to a cafe in the middle of nowhere — The Cafe of Questions.

Inside the cafe, John gets a delicious breakfast, but he is also confronted with a series of uncomfortable, oddly well-timed questions, such as “Why are you here?” “Do you fear death?” and “Are you fulfilled?” The waitress, cook, and fellow guests seem to be able to read his mind, and they all make him reflect deeply on the path in life he has chosen thus far.

At one point in the book, the waitress, Casey, sits down in John’s booth and tells him the story of the green sea turtle. She too was once on vacation, she says. Snorkeling off the coast of Hawaii, she spotted a green sea turtle right next to her in the water. This being the first time she ever saw one, she was excited and decided to follow the little guy for a while.

“To my surprise, although he appeared to be moving pretty slowly, sometimes paddling his flippers and other times just floating, I couldn’t keep up with him. I was wearing fins, which gave me propulsion power through the water, and didn’t have on a buoyancy vest or anything that would slow me down. Yet he kept moving farther from me, even though I was trying to keep up. After about ten minutes, he lost me. Tired, disappointed, and a little embarrassed I couldn’t keep up with a turtle, I turned back and snorkeled to shore.”

The next day, Casey returned to the same spot, and again, she found and tried to keep up with another green sea turtle. As she realized that turtle too was about to lose her, she stopped paddling and just floated in the water.

“As I was floating on the surface, I realized something: When the turtle was swimming, it linked its movements to the movements of the water. When a wave was coming at him, he would float, and paddle just enough to hold his position. When the pull of the wave was from behind him though, he’d paddle faster, so that he was using the movement of the water to his advantage. The turtle never fought the waves. Instead, he used them.”

Casey, on the other hand, had been paddling the whole time. This was easy enough when the tide was in her favor, but the more she fought the incoming waves, the less energy she had to capitalize on the outgoing ones later.

“As wave after wave came in and went out, I became more and more fatigued and less effective. Not the turtle though. He kept optimizing his movements with the movements of the water. That’s why he was able to swim faster than I could.”

If you’re like me — and John — at this point in the story, you’ll wonder: That’s great — but what does it have to do with me and my life? Actually, a whole lot, as Casey will explain in a second.

Have you ever felt like you’re fighting an uphill battle? As if for every two steps forward, life somehow pushes you one step back?

It happens to all of us. We do our best to fulfill our duties as responsible adults, and yet, it seems we must fight tooth and nail to make room for the few people and activities that are truly important to us. Why is that?

Well, as the green sea turtle might tell us: “You’re swimming against the current of life. Why don’t you try swimming with it?”

After Casey gives him some time to think about the story, John interprets it as follows:

“I think the turtle — the green sea turtle — taught you that if you aren’t in tune with what you want to do, you can waste your energy on lots of other things. Then, when opportunities come your way for what you do want, you might not have the time or strength to spend on them.”

Casey smiles, for she knows the power of grasping an important lesson out of one’s own thinking, and then she adds some more context to John’s insight:

“Each day, there are so many people trying to persuade you to spend your time and energy on them. Think about just your mail and email. If you were to participate in every activity, sale, and service offering you get notified of — you’d have no free time. And that’s just mail and email. Add on all the people who want to capture your attention for television time, online activities, places to eat, travel destinations…You can quickly find yourself living a life that’s just a compilation of what everyone else is doing, or what people want you to be doing.”

Casey then explains that since she observed the turtle moving effortlessly through the water, she has taken a new perspective on life: The incoming waves represent all the people, activities, and things that clamor for a share of her attention, time, or energy but don’t contribute to what she really wants to do in life. In essence, they block her from fulfilling her purpose. Meanwhile, the things and people that support Casey living in sync with her calling are like outgoing waves — they carry her towards her destiny.

That’s the lesson of the green sea turtle, and even though it’s a big one to swallow with his pancakes, John decides to chew on it for a while. I hope you will too.

When Casey leaves John to ponder her story, he asks her for pen and paper. On the back of his napkin, he calculates that if he spends 20 minutes a day flicking through unimportant mail for 60 years, that’s over 300 days of his life — almost an entire year, wasted on one incoming wave.

What about all the others? What about TV commercials, mindless radio listening, and people trying to network with him for their advancement? And those are just the distractions John didn’t choose. He too is human. He’ll distract himself as well along the way.

John is shocked. He tells Casey about his discovery. While she reminds him that not all mail is junk — and not all distractions are wasted time — she does admit:

“It can get you thinking. That’s why my time with the green sea turtle made such a big impact on me.”

When you feel like all you do is struggle, ask yourself: “Am I swimming with the current of life? Or am I desperately paddling against it?”

Do you focus too much on distractions? Are you allowing the wrong activities and people to take up your time? If so, it is no wonder every hour you spend on hobbies and friends you love feels like an hour you must mine from the hardest rock with your bare hands.

At the same time, for every distraction you ignore, one ally will look your way. Wait for the right wave, the right circumstances to arrive, and then ride it with everything you’ve got. If the knitted beanie trend is fading, maybe wait a year to start your knitting business. If a friend offers you a small book deal to tell a story you’ve always wanted to tell, go for it!

After years of high-paying but also highly stressful jobs, John Strelecky decided to finally fulfill his childhood dream of traveling the world. When he came back, he wrote the book he needed to read; he gave himself the message he needed to hear.

Since then, that message has been shared millions of times around the world: Don’t swim against the current of life. Focus on the right people, the right activities, and the right things. Only then will it carry you to your dreams.

It’s just one of many metaphors in his book, but I have no doubt that, somewhere on the edge of the world, a green sea turtle once taught Strelecky that lesson — and from that very same turtle, we can still learn to navigate the seas of life today.

Niklas Göke

I write for dreamers, doers, and unbroken optimists. For my best articles & book updates, go here: https://niklasgoeke.com/

Five Quotes by Lao Tzu That Could Change The Way You Think

Helpful Quotes 

 

“Care about what other people think and you will always be their prisoner.”

 

Photo by Hester Qiang on Unsplash

Leo Zeballos

Jan 24 · 6 min read

Lao Tzu was an ancient Chinese philosopher founder of Taoism, an ancient Chinese philosophy. It emphasizes doing what is natural and going with the “flow”. Little is truly known about Lao Tzu, but what we do know is that he wrote some of his wisdom in the text Tao Te Ching, a sacred Taoist text with writings from other philosophers too.

What strikes me the most is how these people, who lived thousands of years ago, already had figured out the core principles to a happy life. They faced different problems and circumstances than we do today, but their wisdom can still be applied to our lives and it has the potential to change the way we think about the world and ourselves.

Lao Tzu offers some profound lessons on how to live a happier life and achieve our goals.

“The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.”

This quote touches on a fundamental part of personal improvement and growth.

Often, fear holds us back from trying something new. You might come up with several excuses to not get out of your comfort zone, like “I don’t have time” or “I’m fine just the way I am”.

But deep within you, you know you are afraid to take action because you don’t want to fail.

I get it. I feel like that too, and in the past, fear has stopped me from doing things I really wanted to do. It’s easy to feel overwhelmed when you decide to take action and see the long road of improving your life that waits ahead.

The good thing is, you don’t have to think about that long road or make a radical change in your life to see improvements. Instead, start taking small steps.

How to apply it:

Take small steps towards your dream life. It doesn’t matter how small it is, the important thing is to get started and start building momentum.

The key to success is consistency, so start adopting healthy habits to improve your life. There are a variety of healthy habits you can choose and you’ll want to stick to them to reap their benefits.

How do you do that?

Start by performing the easiest version of your desired habit.

• Want to read more books? Start by reading 5 pages a day
• Want to journal? Write down your thoughts for 5 minutes every day
• Want to be fit and healthy? Start going to the gym once a week or do exercises that require the minimum effort at home

Start small, then gradually increase the amount of time you spend on those habits.

“Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes. Don’t resist them — that only creates sorrow. Let reality be reality. Let things flow naturally forward in whatever way they like.”

Whenever things don’t go our way, we get frustrated and sometimes angry. It’s totally normal to feel this way and is even expected from you.

Personally, I don’t like change, especially when those changes trigger negative emotions. But the crude reality is that our lives are constantly changing and evolving. We have little control over the external world, so it makes sense to stop resisting these changes.

Of course, that’s easier said than done.

I resisted changes in my life by dwelling on the past and focusing only on the negative side of them. If you act like that, you are going to feel unhappy and lost in your life.

How to apply it:

Let reality be reality. Adapt to the new changes and try to see the positive side in the long term. It’s okay to feel mad and grieve at first, depending on the type of change.

But don’t stay there for too long because it will get harder to get out of that negative state of mind. Negative emotions are inevitable. We all feel sad or stressed at some point in our lives because of a certain situation or event.

But you can’t let those emotions define you, what you need to do is interpret those emotions into positive feelings.

Ask yourself:

“What did I learn from this situation?”

“How can it benefit me in the future?”

“Be content with what you have; rejoice in the way things are. When you realize nothing is lacking, the whole world belongs to you.”

Practicing gratitude is one of the best ways to feel happy with yourself and your life.

You need to have a positive image of yourself if you want to achieve your goals. And you also need to feel content with the things you have in the present.

Some people have more than others, but the mere fact that you can read this because you have a computer and an internet connection is something you need to be truly grateful for.

Gratitude has many benefits. One that I really like is that it improves your mental health and gives you more clarity. When you have a consistent gratitude practice, toxic emotions like frustration or resentment start to affect you less and less over time.

How to apply it:

Adopt a gratitude habit. There are many ways to do that. For example, every evening I think about three things I’m grateful for that day.

It can be anything, the point is that you need to feel genuinely grateful for them. Maybe you feel grateful for a movie you watched, for reading a chapter of your book, watching the sunset, or taking a walk. It helps to remember how those situations made you feel. Try to recreate them in your mind.

If you want to upgrade that practice, you can think about three things you are grateful for about yourself.

Maybe you liked how engaged you were in a conversation you had with someone, or maybe you are content because you trusted yourself to make a decision. Again, it can be anything, just remember to feel genuinely grateful about them.

“Those who know do not speak. Those who speak do not know.”

We’ve been taught that talkative and outgoing people are the ones that are successful in life. That’s why people often speak and say things without thinking about them.

People prefer to talk over listening because it’s human nature. We feel we are contributing more when we talk. And who wouldn’t like to contribute more to the world?

The problem is, we do not listen to understand, we listen to reply. We are eager to share our thoughts and opinions as soon as the other person stops talking. But there is so much you can learn when you just listen intentionally.

Besides, when you are a good listener, it makes the person who is speaking to you feel loved and worthy of being heard. They’ll want to be around you more.

How to apply it:

You probably already know how to apply this one. Listen more and speak less.

Whenever you are having a conversation with someone, try to focus all your attention on what they are saying. Ask them questions about how they feel and their motivations.

Don’t interrupt. Wait until that person is done talking before you respond. Over time, you will realize how much more rewarding it is to listen rather than speaking whatever comes to your mind.

“Care about what other people think and you will always be their prisoner.”

For many years l cared too much about what other people thought about me. It’s normal to care about the opinion of other people. Sometimes, we need to care about what other people think, otherwise we’d do whatever we want and probably be disliked by everyone.

It becomes a problem when you start to obsessively care about what other people think about you.

You try to impress people, show them how amazing you are and before you know it, you’ll hide your authentic self, you’ll make decisions only to please others and you stop living your life in the way you want it.

How to apply it:

I know it might sound cliche, but be yourself.

Embrace your weirdness. That’s what makes you unique and stand out. Don’t be afraid to do things or think differently from others and take decisions most people won’t approve of.

As long as it doesn’t hurt you and other people and that’s what makes you happy, do it. No one knows you better than you do, so stop trying to please or caring what other people think about you.

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• Philosophy
• Personal Development
• Self Improvement
• Life Lessons
• Life

Written by

Leo Zeballos

A student of life. Writing about personal growth and mental clarity. Let's chat: leozeballos8@gmail.com

The Apeiron Blog

An easy to read philosophical space that aims to elicit discussion and debate on matters of the universe.

You Live the Life You’re Willing to Tolerate

The Life You Tolerate 

 

So stop tolerating less than you deserve

Ayodeji Awosika

When you put your hand on a hot stove accidentally, you remove it immediately. The pain is so unbearable that you don’t need to make a decision to move your hand. Imagine if you lived your life the same way. Imagine what your life would look like if subpar results hurt just as bad as touching your hand to that stove?

You’d live out Tony Robbin’s classic quote:

“Change happens when the pain of staying the same is greater than the pain of change.”

On some level, you’re okay with the results you have right now. Your life is tolerable. You start to live a life you tolerate because the things you’re willing to tolerate accumulate slowly over time. You’re like that frog who sits in a pot that slowly heats up until it eventually boils. But since it happened so slowly you don’t feel the need to act quickly like the hot stove.

How do you change this?

Instead of feeling a dull yet tolerable level of pain and anxiety your whole life, you find a way to rip the band-aid and make the changes you need to make now. This is something you logically understand but find it difficult to emotionally embrace. So is pretty much every other self-improvement concept. Let’s tackle this from every angle and see if we can find something that sticks.

Why Is a Life You Don’t Want Acceptable to You?

If you’re living an amazing life with no room for growth, no need to read further. If you’re someone who is just content with what they have, stop reading. I’m not here to add fuel to the fire of self-help that seeks to only criticize. I’m just talking to people who know deep down that this ain’t it.

Back to the question, if your life isn’t the way you want it to be, why do you tolerate it? You’re willing to tolerate certain realities you do so because on some level you think you deserve to live that way. I’ve had moments like that in my life like the time where I tolerated a bad relationship because I felt it was the best option I had and I was afraid to start over and be alone.

You feel like you deserve to live that way because of the way you see yourself. You see yourself a certain way because of your behavior, your experiences, and your interpretation of both. This leaves you in a catch 22 scenario. Which comes first if you want to change your situation? How do you change your identity to become someone who will no longer tolerate your current reality when you’re currently tolerating your reality because you’re unwilling to change?

In short, you fake it until you make it long enough to do the work it requires to make that identity change become real. You have to tap into that deeper understanding that you do deserve more deep down, but you just haven’t done what it takes to become that person yet. You know that person is the real one. The person you know you’re supposed to become.

You just keep it real with yourself. We live in this culture where you’re not supposed to feel bad about yourself for any reason whatsoever. This culture teaches you tolerance of everything when you definitely shouldn’t tolerate certain aspects of your life. There’s nothing wrong with looking at your situation and realizing you messed up — that the results you have right now are just objectively subpar. That maybe you should be upset with yourself for letting things get this bad. At this point, you’re on your way.

Understand What’s On the Other Side

Seems simple enough, right? Get fed up with your situation and do what it takes to change. But it’s hard. And you’ll have to go through a period of your life where you face massive levels of uncertainty. And I won’t lie to you, sometimes that period of your life will be brutal.

Using my relationship as an example again. After finally cutting things off and striking out on my own, I was depressed. Couldn’t leave my bed for days. It took a month for me to really get outside into the open world again. I had done the right thing by removing myself from an intolerable situation, but the rewards weren’t immediate.

It didn’t take too long to get back on my feet and the uncertainty I was afraid of wasn’t all that bad. The same will be true for you most likely. things will suck for a little bit when you try to start a new path for your life, but you’ll get over it.

Where are the areas in your life that you don’t like, but you’re willing to accept because at least you know what to expect? Where are the areas in your life where the fear of uncertainty keeps you stuck? Those tend to be the ones you need to attack most because they’ll lull you into a sense of complacency for years, decades at a time.

The best remedy for this involves looking forward and thinking about what your life will end up like if you let comfort and familiarity build a cage around you. If you want to escape, it just takes the simple realization that you just need to go through a period of challenge and struggle in your life to get to the other side. That’s it. You just have to deal with your emotions swinging up and down for a while. And then you’ll have changed.

You’re Much Better Than This

You tolerate a life you really don’t want to live because the story you tell yourself about life maps better with your insecurities. Think about it. How many times do you have doubtful thoughts vs confident ones? How many times are you beating yourself vs lifting yourself up?

If you constantly spend time focusing on the negative, of course, it makes sense that you should be willing to tolerate certain realities. It makes sense to have flawed areas of your life since you’re so flawed. In reality, though, you’re just telling yourself a story that’s blown way out of proportion and you know it.

You get over that story by repeatedly reminding yourself that it’s BS. When you remind yourself that it’s BS, and you believe it for just a tiny bit, it gives you a window of time where you actually do act like that person you’re supposed to be. The more you act like that person, the more your identity changes. As it changes, you’ll no longer tolerate certain things.

I have so many things from my past that I’d no longer tolerate at all now. I got there by slowly changing my story. I’d keep reminding myself that I didn’t have to live a certain way, that I was capable of much more, that I didn’t have to just lay down and watch the rest of my life go by.

Have that conversation with yourself. You’re better than this. You’re better than working some crappy corporate job you don’t really like so you can pay that $500 car payment. Screw that job and the car, go live your dream. You don’t have to settle for that person you know deep down isn’t the one. You don’t have to live in the shadows and be a wallflower on the world’s stage to fit in.

It’s okay to admit what you want from this life. Stop being afraid to ask for it. And don’t let people shame you out of asking for it because they’re afraid. Let them tolerate their existence. Consciously build your life exactly the way you want it and don’t stop until you fully make it happen.

Ayodeji is the author of You 2.0 — Stop Feeling Stuck, Reinvent Yourself, and Become a Brand New You. Want a free copy of my first book? Get it here.

Check out the latest episode of the 5 Mics Podcast here (video) (audio)

Ayodeji Awosika

Learn how to become a top Medium writer and make a living writing here — https://bit.ly/freemediumcourse4u

• Life Lessons
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