Hi friends,
I’ve wondered how I should start these newsletters that I write, and I’ve come down to ripping off Ali Abdaal’s opening line in his Sunday Snippets. Since one of his favorite books is Steal Like an Artist by Austin Kleon, I’m sure he won’t mind.
A mantra that has been haunting me for my entire adult life has been the phrase “not good enough.” No matter how hard I try and how much effort I put in, there have been times when I haven’t been satisfied with my performance. That I could’ve given more than I did. I remember after my second year as project manager for ARKAD, one of my friends I’d worked with in the project group came up to me and said that he was inspired by what I had done that year and how impressed he was by my performance.
And I remember being moved by his words while simultaneously hearing, “It wasn’t anything special. Don’t think too highly of yourself; you know that you could’ve done more”. And just like that, the joy from that genuine experience had evaporated.
Now granted, that monster doesn’t always rear its face. And the more wins I’ve stacked under my belt, the easier it has been to silence it. Chris Williamson defines confidence as “an undeniable stack of proof that you are who you say you are” (something along those lines, at least), and I can see that reflected in my life.
For the last couple of months, I’ve been more exposed to Alex Hormozi. From what I can tell, he seems like a phenomenally great guy who genuinely wants to do good in this world and change it for the better. I attended his second book launch, $100M Leads (I still haven’t read it), and managed to snag an Acquisition.com cap! It’d be cool to get to meet him, along with many other influencers and personalities who’ve shared their knowledge and experiences to guide me along my path. But, one thing at a time.
The reason that I brought Alex up is that he has a couple of quotes that he lives by that I’ve tried to take to heart more and more:
And I think it’s beautiful how simple they sound yet how full-coverage they manage to be. They’re also much less pessimistic than “not good enough,” so I’m confident it’s a step in the right direction. I’ve found them
particularly useful in reducing the time it takes me to sit down and get working. Repeating those phrases a couple of times makes it evident to the less disciplined part of me that
there’s no getting around it: Eventually, we’ll have to get through this.
That, coupled with a comforting mantra that I’ve also carried with me for quite a long time, usually does the trick for me: it’s finite.
This means that, no matter if I can see how it will be once I’m finished or how much work it requires to be called “done,” I know that there are a limited amount of action steps that I need to take to get there. It won’t stretch on for infinity; there’s a light at the end of the tunnel.
I hope that this can help someone in their own life reading this.
Remember, we’re all going to make it.