When you know you are not the words you write, you can write more freely.
When you know you are not the time you run in your marathon, you can run more freely.
When you know you are not your pain, you can let it be the without thinking it’ll never go away.
And when you know you are not your love either, you can enjoy it fully without being afraid to lose it.
Your anger is real. But you are not your anger.
Your worries are real. But that doesn’t mean it’s rooted in reality.
You aren’t scared. You feel scared.
You are not your emotions. Emotions are not your identity.
Performance gap: the frustrating gap between the way you know something should be done in an ideal world and the way you currently do it.
I know I should write daily blog posts in advance so I have a buffer in case something comes up and I don’t get to write. Yet here I am, writing this daily insight hours before the publication date.
I know what the perfect downward-facing dog pose in yoga looks like. Yet when I perform it myself, I am far off from that ideal pose.
I know all the ingredients that make up a solid, convincing speech. Yet when I write one myself, I am only able to incorporate a few of those ingredients.
Learning, then, is closing the gap between your intellectual understanding of an ideal product, action, or skill, and your current rendition of it.
Don’t be so hard on yourself for your current performance.
You can’t expect to turn intellectual understanding into mastery and internalized knowledge right away.
You don’t have to master this today.
What would your future look like if you weren’t rushing to get there so fast?
What would your present look like if you didn’t let it be limited by the past?
What would your dreams look like if you realized your potential is vast?
Would you be free at last?
The path toward self-awareness isn’t always pleasant.
Take yesterday, when I realized that in many cases, I’m more interested in the comfort of “wanting” something I don’t have than in “taking action to get something.”
That unappealing realization triggered a cascade of even more unappealing questions.
Would I rather mess around with small blog posts instead of becoming a skilled writer crafting coherent arguments?
Would I rather learn about a million different strategies to grow a newsletter instead of actually spreading the word and getting more people to read my newsletter?
Would I rather learn how to learn a language than actually learn a new language?
Is the frustration of unrealized potential also a huge source of comfort in my life?
I’m not sure if I should be happy with that realization.
Maybe realizations aren’t even supposed to make me happy.
But even if they were, it doesn’t matter.
Because look: here I am, writing another insight about it.
Another Tiny Trust Builder, proving that every day, I am one step closer to renouncing my citizenship of the United States of “If I wanted, I could.”
Another reminder to myself and you, my friend, one I’ll repeat until the bitter end: actions overrule thoughts.
Rarely can you build a new habit without going through discomfort and resistance.
Choose to avoid the short-term pain… Or choose to focus on the long-term gain.
You are not the naysayer.
You are not the euphoric idealist.
You are not your thoughts.
You just are.
