- Why can’t I make money?
- Why do I feel like I am failing at life?
- Why am I still not where I want to be?
- Why do I feel like I keep spinning my tires and never going anywhere?
These were actual questions that I constantly asked myself, and I just couldn’t seem to get my shit together. Like could not get. my. shit. together. I didn’t bounce around from place to place. I wasn’t particularly unstable. I was just not reaching my full potential. And at the end of the day I have to go back to the mantra I used to repeat to myself when I would find myself pulling an all-nighter the night before a big test, or a big project was due. This is nobody’s fault but your own. Where you are now is a direct reflection of all the choices you’ve made. Live with the consequences, whatever those may be, and make better decisions next time.
“This is nobody’s fault but your own. Where you are now is a direct reflection of all the choices you’ve made. Live with the consequences, whatever those may be and make better decisions next time.”
– Me to Myself, talking myself out of self-pity and self-loathing
But really, every year for at least six years, I would have these random moments of clarity where I would look at my life, only to realize that I wasn’t where I wanted to be and I couldn’t figure it out. What needed to come first? I wasn’t particularly happy, and I wasn’t particularly unhappy, I was caught in this weird cycle of disappointment and non-achievement. I had so much potential, I know I did. I needed to take an inventory. I needed to take a deep breath, a step back, clean up, shape up, reevaluate, reassess, reprioritize.
The answer to most of these questions boils down to one key fact: Subconsciously I’m still comparing myself to others.
On the surface I like to think and say that I don’t care what other people think, but deep down that’s clearly a lie. We all care about what other people think. It’s like one of the most basic needs in being human, the need to feel accepted. Aside from freedom, thanks Westworld, it’s the need to feel belonging and acceptance. Intrinsic motivation because you’re being fulfilled somehow, and then outward measurable success that makes you feel validated in your pursuits. Comparison isn’t inherently all bad, it gives us a benchmark, but at the same time, it’s all just arbitrary.
The truth of the issue is who’s to say that I don’t have my shit together besides me? I pay my own bills, I feed myself, I feel like at this point in life I have a pretty good understanding of what I want and who I am. So what if I’m a late bloomer? I have so many ideas, so many talents, and so much time… Well, not so much time, but theres’ no law that says you can’t start when you want, and there’s no law that says you can’t take all the time you need, and there’s no law that says you have to be on anyone’s timeline but your own.
And the answer to the rest of the questions? Thinking vs. Doing.
This is the big one. I’m a thinker rather than a doer. It’s one of my greatest strengths, and it’s also one of my biggest weaknesses. I’ve written about it before. Almost a year ago, and in that time I feel like I haven’t really done anything. And technically I’ve done more than others and less than some, but again, it doesn’t really matter how it stacks up to everything else, as long as I’m happy and satisfied with the outcome. Conversely, I have done a lot, it just wasn’t enough, or more accurately it wasn’t enough for me.
And now that I am doing I have to be mindful. I have to make better decisions, and make better use of time. Plan and prioritize, become a slave to the habits that make you successful. I think this is probably one of the hardest and most valuable lessons I have learned over the past few years. I spent so much time trying to fight against routines, habits, convention, and rules and ending up living some shallow existence that’s the same kind of life as everyone else’s, that I missed the forest for the trees. When you develop good habits, and you become a slave to those habits, those habits are what will set you free, not what will be your chains.