Puerto Rico

The things that are blocking you from achieving what you want to do is often you. Listen, you have goals and there are things between you and the successful you. Consider what’s stopping you.

If the reasons why you haven’t achieved the goals yet are external problems, go work on those problems. You almost certainly know the path forward.

If the reasons you suggested are internal problems, as in problems with the self (I can’t keep the habit, I am too scared, etc), this is much more dangerous. It means you have identified a weakness stopping you from living the life you want.

Most external problems are secretly internal problems deeply rooted inside. Examples: You are scared you won’t pass the LSAT and this will confirm your fears about maybe never being a lawyer so you don’t study. You don’t want to start a company and fail so you work a grindy consulting job or a cushy tech job, telling everyone that asks that you’ll start a company and make it big later.

Sometimes things really do just take time, but I’ve recently realized waiting on life to happen is always passing on life. If your goal is to practice law, go look into applying to Law School. Biding your time as an entry-level Law Clerk until you feel “ready” just because it’s related to law won’t make you into a lawyer. If your goal is to start a company, go start a company. You won’t be ready either. There’s pretty much no point to waiting until you’re ready.

Much of this comes down to doing things you think you should do instead of just doing it. There are all sorts of tells you can get when someone isn’t serious about doing something.

The biggest one is buying expensive gear. A photographer doesn’t really need a nice DSLR camera and all sorts of lenses. It’s actually probably better to just take pics with your phone because you learn the fundamentals instead of learning technical details of a complicated device. The reason why people do this is because (1) it’s easy and (2) looking the part feels almost like you’re doing it. We want to buy ourselves into the identity.

The other tell is doing all sorts of unfocused satellite work that isn’t central to the main goal. Like in high school, I used to watch physics animations instead of watching lectures. Or buying a domain name for a website before I even build the app. It’s sort of an advanced form of procrastination. It sucks to figure stuff out, especially on your own. But it’s also scary to tell someone your ambitions. So it’s just much easier to copy someone’s life path and doing stuff that feels like progress.

It’s totally normal to feel a lot of these feelings. And even as you get over one problem, your weaknesses don’t go away immediately either. I also don’t think it’s worth scrubbing your weaknesses clean either. I’ve been told I’m a very all or nothing person — I get unnaturally obsessed with things, in ways that sometimes disrupt other obligations. After getting burned a few times, I spent time taming this, but realized I lost the focus and passion that made me stand out too. Rarely are weaknesses not accompanied with a strength. By neutralizing your weaknesses, you neutralize your strength too.

What matters in my opinion is understanding the disabling qualities of yourself. Look at the goal and consider what’s needed. Sometimes you just need to be a leader and you will need to figure out how to solve the public speaking fear and stutter.

Getting out of your own way is also more easily said than done. Clarity of thought will help, but this in itself may be getting in your way. I think the cop-out answer for all of this is simple: just do it.

• you have goals
• if you could do them right now, then they wouldn’t be goals.
• what’s stopping you?
• internal problems
• external problems
  • external problems are solvable
  • internal problems harder to identify, harder to solve.
• basically, you probably have weaknesses or belief systems that are holding you back.
• this isn’t always true. there are probably a ton of problems that are not easily solvable, but most of the problems if you break them down are in your control to change
• it’s probably the most important thing to think about if you want to be good at something.
• there will always be problems… no way around that
• but if you can

what if your life was the one that you begged for? the one you live is the one you choose.

I’ve been thinking about the last few projects that turned from sparks to a weight.