A few 12 months in the past, I made a decision to make an enormous change to this very e-newsletter you’re studying.
You see, from 2020-2023 I used to be fairly unmotivated to do my job.
Which is sort of superb, whenever you notice that I’ve full autonomy, created Nerd Health, and basically constructed my very own job.
I had spent years attempting to be the person who I assumed Nerd Health and the neighborhood wanted me to be, as a substitute of doing what I’m really good at (writing fascinating issues in enjoyable methods and serving to individuals degree up).
How did I discover myself in that undesirable place?
One small determination after one other, slowly over a few years.
I saved selecting tasks I didn’t like and forcing myself to do them, however justified it to myself by saying, “I simply have to do that till [arbitrary goal or date], after which I could be executed.”
The issue in fact, was that I by no means reached my arbitrary objective. Or I modified what the objective was, or the world modified, or the enterprise modified.
I ended up spending daily doing one thing I didn’t like, for a payoff that by no means got here.
I did this for years, and burned myself out.
After numerous remedy, lengthy walks, soul looking out and failing repeatedly, I lastly requested the vital query: If I NEVER “get there,” what would I do in another way?
I spotted I had to alter how I spent my time and the way I set objectives.
As a substitute of doing stuff I didn’t like and hoping for an eventual payoff, I restructured my day round why I began Nerd Health within the first place:
Studying broadly about random subjects that pique my curiosity, after which sharing my excited ideas on these subjects with a bunch of nerds (hey, that’s you!).
Since then, I’ve written dozens of newsletters about bizarre subjects, hobbies, life, philosophy, and all the pieces in between:
130,000+ individuals now get this article each week, and it’s solely strengthened my determination to cease specializing in the vacation spot and get again to discovering methods to benefit from the journey.
I plan on writing this article for a long time to return, and I’m enthusiastic about this chance to e mail you bizarre stuff weekly.
I now ask you a similar query.
What should you by no means “get there”?
Years in the past, I stumbled throughout any person on Reddit asking what the worst half was about being chubby.
One reply broke my coronary heart:
“The truth that you set your complete life on maintain, telling your self that you’ll resume residing whenever you lose the burden. Then, not being in keeping with stated weight reduction journey and principally…by no means getting to actually dwell.”
Every single day, I see individuals doing train they hate, or attempting to comply with a food regimen they don’t take pleasure in, to achieve an arbitrary quantity on the size that they suppose will make them joyful.
Most can’t follow the food regimen or exercise for various weeks, get demoralized, and quit.
Others handle to lose the burden, solely to understand seeing a smaller quantity on their scale didn’t magically remedy all of their issues. They determine the every day distress isn’t price it.
It’s time to flip the script and quit!
We’ll by no means “get there,” as a result of “there” isn’t an precise place we are able to get. It’s a way of thinking.
This could change how we take into consideration the exercise or food regimen we select, the objective we design our life round, or the expectation we set for ourselves.
My objective with this article, and for our teaching purchasers, helps individuals attain the next realization:
Discovering methods to take pleasure in train, and making dietary adjustments that don’t really feel overwhelming, is the one path ahead. Even higher, this usually ends in reaching our objectives quicker than once we chased fads or methods we hated!
I’m reminded of this quote from thinker Sam Harris:
“Most of your life is the method of fixing issues.
It isn’t, and by no means can be, a situation of basking within the absence of all issues. There’ll all the time be one thing to do.”
Creator Mark Manson put it extra succinctly:
“Don’t hope for a life with no issues. Hope for a life with higher issues.”
What are you going to do in another way?
As Albert Camus explains about Sisyphus pushing the boulder up the hill, there’s an attractive freedom that comes with acceptance of by no means “getting there”:
Sisyphus is “free” from the hope he would ever succeed. He accepts his destiny he would by no means win, and thus can simply get to work on discovering which means in pushing that rock, watching it roll again down, and beginning over once more.
None of us are getting out of right here alive, and at present is the one assure.
I wish to hear about what you’ll do in another way should you knew you’ll by no means “get there.”
What would you alter?
Would you:
I wish to hear what you’ll change in your every day journey.
Hit reply and let me know. I’ll be over right here pushing this boulder up a hill.
-Steve
