7 Lies I Stopped Telling Myself

A few years ago, as part of the research for my ​first book​, I asked a group of centenarians for the advice they'd most like to give to their younger selves.

Those lies dilute your attention, pull you toward distractions, and cut into your confidence. They give you an easy out when the truth requires more painful accountability.

Those lies keep you from running at full power. Self-protection that becomes self-rejection.

In the years since that conversation, I've often found myself reflecting on the comment as a thought experiment for my own life:

Through identifying those lies, I've slowly learned to stop telling them.

You've probably seen that quote on a motivational poster at some point. I get it. It's a nice sentiment.

But it's a lie. And a damaging one at that, because it convinced me that I was always working on the wrong thing.

I'd start to feel stressed or anxious about my work, that motivational mantra would pop into my head, and I'd realize I needed to make a change.

I shouldn't be stressed. I should be smiling, loving my work. Every single day.

Stress and anxiety are a tax on extreme ambition. Those with extreme ambition are the most prone to feelings of stress and anxiety that accompany the natural non-linearity of progress.

A powerful force for good when channeled in a clear direction toward a meaningful pursuit, but a stress amplifier when progress and momentum are unclear.

My new goal isn't to find stress-free work. It's to work on things I find so meaningful that I'm happy to stress over them.

Carl Jung coined the archetype of Puer Aeternus (Latin for the "eternal boy") as an adult who lives in a constant state of boyhood, with a fear of commitment and an obsession with preparation for action that never comes.

The modern world has made it easier than ever to fall into the Puer Aeturnus trap.

Information gathering has become sport. Research, studying, learning, planning. All of it jammed into neat little dopamine feedback loops that convince you that you're doing something productive and valuable.

You're just one piece of information away from the big breakthrough. You'll start the business when your business plan is perfected. You'll meet your partner when you've scrolled through another round of profiles. You'll get that dream job when you have one more degree in hand.

Until I realized that the world wasn't being run by a bunch of geniuses with 47 PhDs and 170 IQs. The world was being run by a bunch of normal people with abnormal bias for action.

The opportunity you seek is floating around at all times. But you have to take action to seize it.

Dopamine from information gathering is a dangerous drug. Get your dopamine from action.

The bias for action that I learned to embrace had its own potential poison.

The world will pressure you to rush into everything. Rushed decisions. Rushed conversations. Rushed relationships. Rushed timelines.

I tried, but it didn't work. Because when you're moving too fast, you don't have the ability to identify the things that really matter. You spread your action across a million things, which dilutes your impact.

Slow down to see what matters. Then sprint to act on those things.

In a world obsessed with speed, there is immense value to be unlocked from becoming difficult to rush.

I spent most of my life with a deep fear of uncertainty. My life had mostly followed a nice, neat path, so when I'd encounter bits of uncertainty, I'd leap at the chance to avoid it, often committing to a stable, but objectively worse, path.

You're crawling through the mud. You see a comfortable path out of it. So, you take it. But what you don't realize is that if you had just been willing to sit in the mud a little bit longer, your real breakthrough may have been just ahead.

Not because it's magically there, but because the mud changes you.

Tolerance for uncertainty is one of the most valuable human traits.

It’s easy to show up when the rewards are certain. When everything makes sense. When the path is entirely clear. But life is filled with challenging detours. Long and winding. Full of doubt and stagnation.

The real rewards in life go to those who show up every single day when the rewards are uncertain. Without a guarantee. Those who take the next step forward when they can’t see where their foot is going to land.

Winners aren’t the smartest or most talented. Winners are the ones who can hold their nerve the longest.

The one who can tolerate the most uncertainty is the one who will eventually win.

Here are a few of the most common things I heard from people in my life when I started my writing journey in 2020:

In each case, I delayed starting because I assumed they were right. I trusted the wisdom of the crowd over my own.

You can wake up and choose to see things differently. To do things differently. You can change. You can completely reinvent your life. Too late is an internal fantasy. A fear-based coping mechanism.

Every single time you think it's too late, it's probably still early.

There's a cognitive distortion called the End of History Illusion, which says that people consistently report changing a lot in the past, but don't expect to change much in the future.

Basically, you think the current version of you is the final version. Obviously, you're wrong, but convincing yourself of that fact is a difficult battle.

"Yet" is a one word reminder that you are in a state of continuous change and growth. You are not a fixed entity. You are not done becoming. New experiences reshape your perspectives. New challenges forge new skills. New chapters create new values.

Every single time I thought I had it all figured out, I was about to get punched in the face.

You learn, you improve, you level up, you grow. But you never figure it all out.

Life is un-figure-out-able. It's far too complex. There are too many moving parts. Too many variables outside your sphere of awareness and control.

That's the fun of it. You have to stay on your toes. Everything you have is rented, not owned. You have to work to keep it and grow it.

The water may look calm, but the crocodiles are always lurking.

There's no such thing as a harmless lie when you're telling it to yourself.