The biggest generator of long-term results is learning to do things when you don’t feel like doing them.

If you let excuses or emotion drive behavior, you’re cheating your future self.

Put aside the excuses and start doing what you need to do.

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Divine discontent

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It's going to take time, keep on it.

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Writer and professor Joseph Campbell on loving your fate:

"Nietzsche was the one who did the job for me. At a certain moment in his life, the idea came to him of what he called "the love of your fate."

Whatever your fate is, whatever the hell happens, you say, "This is what I need." It may look like a wreck, but go at it as though it were an opportunity, a challenge. If you bring love to that moment — not discouragement — you will find the strength is there. Any disaster you can survive is an improvement in your character, your stature, and your life. What a privilege!

Then, when looking back at your life, you will see that the moments which seemed to be great failures followed by wreckage were the incidents that shaped the life you have now. The crisis throws you back, and when you are required to exhibit strength, it comes."


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When we do good, we don’t need to ask for more, because practicing virtue is its own profound return.

In every choice, in every sacrifice, we are shaping who we are through this practice—and that’s reward enough.

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How to Recover from bad decisions

Today, I’ll give you three questions to ask yourself — and once you truly consider them, you’ll have an easier time growing, changing, and making peace with the past.

Let’s go through them — and then I’ll share how they impacted Lauren.

First question…

1. Did I do the best with what I had?
To explain this, I want to take you back — to when I got the biggest job of my life.

I became editor in chief of Entrepreneur magazine in 2016, and I felt instantly overwhelmed. I was used to working at magazines with larger staffs, but Entrepreneur is a family-owned company with a lean operation. I kept thinking: How will I do everything I did before, but with fewer people?

I soon realized: I couldn’t. And once I accepted that, opportunities opened up.

Because here’s the thing: I, like you, do not have all the resources I want. Or the time. Or connections. Or knowledge. We just DON’T.

So what do we do? Often, we sit around thinking: “I could be so much better, if only I had more…” — and then our actual accomplishments feel smaller, because they don’t match our fantasies of abundance.

That’s why I came up with a mantra for myself, which I’ve written about before. For every project I take on, I repeatedly tell myself: I will do the best work with the resources available.

I accept my limitations as a starting point. Then I measure myself by how I use them. This is what’s fair and realistic — because no matter the restrictions, I know I can do something great.

Now apply that thinking to your past.

Maybe you’re ashamed or embarrassed by a decision you made. But ask yourself: Did I do the best with what I had?

The answer is probably yes. Your decision wasn’t random or foolish. Instead, it was informed by the knowledge, experience, needs, interests, curiosities, and desires you had at the time.

Now you know more! That doesn’t make you a fool. It makes you a person who collections information and adapts. That’s the best trait of all.

Next question:

2. Did I learn X in order to know Y?
We hold ourselves to the wrong standard. And that standard is efficiency.

We want to get something, and then use it to succeed. Nice and tidy.
But life doesn’t work like that.

In other words: Life isn’t about acquisition and usage. It’s about collection and assembly. We wander around, pick up pieces, and then figure out what they’re good for.

Think about the last time you felt embarrassed by a decision. Now ask yourself: Did I need to learn that, in order to do what I really want?

The answer is probably yes. Which made the past worth it. We learn by experience.

Now, final question:

3. What if I’m just always doing it wrong?
This sounds like a haunting question. But should be a liberating one.

In their book The Startup of You, Reid Hoffman and Ben Casnocha write this:

“Finished” ought to be an F-word for all of us. Because when it comes to our career, we are all works in progress. Each day presents an opportunity to learn more, do more, be more, grow more, often in unexpected or unpredictable ways.
Everyone should consider themselves in “permanent beta”, they write — as if you, and your work, are in a constant state of testing.

I really love this phrase, because it changes the stakes. We often beat ourselves up for our flaws — but a product in beta is supposed to have bugs! That’s not a problem; it’s just part of a process.

The truth is this:

✅ What you did before is imperfect.

✅ What you’re doing now is imperfect.

✅ What you’ll do next is imperfect.

And if that’s true, then imperfection can’t be held against us. We can instead be measured by our willingness to grow — to solve today’s problems, and create even better problems next.

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Asceticism is not that you should not own anything, but that nothing should own you.
— Ali ibn Abu Talib

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“Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed, is more important than any other one thing.”

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Here is something counterintuitive: it’s easier to do something daily rather than a few times a week.

For example, last March, I started going to the gym. I told myself I would go three days a week. And that worked for a few weeks, but then I found myself slacking off. Since I was only going three days a week, it was easy to tell myself I didn’t have to go today – I could go tomorrow instead.

As someone who doesn’t particularly enjoy going to the gym, going tomorrow always sounded better than going today. Within a month, I stopped going to the gym altogether.

I needed a new approach. One that didn’t involve willpower. I made a rule to go to the gym every single day. And that subtle change made all the difference.

Doing something every day turns desired behavior into default behavior.

When willpower is lacking, routine takes over.

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When we watch people make small choices, like order a salad at lunch instead of a burger, the difference of a few hundred calories doesn’t seem to matter much. In the moment that’s true. These small decisions don’t matter all that much. However, as days turn to weeks and weeks to months and months to years those tiny repeatable choices compound. Consider another example, saving a little money right now won’t make you a millionaire tomorrow. But starting to save today makes it more likely you will become a millionaire in the future.

Our brains have a hard time intuitively understanding time, compounding, and uncertainty. All of those things conspire to work against us when it comes to habits and mental disciplines. Why choose to save $20 today when I could buy a bottle of wine and have instant pleasure? Our minds do not easily realize that $20 saved today could be $100 in the future. And if we do save the money, there is no certainty that it will compound positively, it could, after all, compound negatively and I end up with $15. Now you can begin to see why it’s easier to just live in the moment and do whatever you want.

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Remember:
Each day is an opportunity to stack new evidence in favor of the person you want to become.

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Difficulties mastered are opportunities won.

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“If the decisions you make about where you invest your blood, sweat, and tears are not consistent with the person you aspire to be, you’ll never become that person.”
― Clayton M. Christensen

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