I want to walk you through a process that is intuitive, but it’s not something we think to do. In our lives we are constantly making decisions. These decisions are contextual and influenced by a variety of things - Our emotional state, our subconscious wiring, and our short term and long term rationalizations. Often we find ourselves making decisions out of integrity of who we want to be because the more impulsive voices are louder than our voice of reason. But in order to know what is within our integrity, so that our actions can map to it, we need to clearly define what our ideal is.

The secret to it is you need to take time to establish who you want to be in an unemotional, matter of fact state of mind. Viewing yourself as a third party that sets certain standards allows you to get the core of what your tolerances are. If you have a tendency to do things you know are unhealthy, like drinking too much, eating poor food, or not exercising enough, you can determine what your ideal relationship with that area of your life is. If you find yourself scrolling on social media for too long at night and it compromises your sleep, you can set expectations about when and for how long you want to be on it. 

It’s extremely empowering to wipe the slate clean and decide for yourself how you want to live your life, your ideal life, because you can. We all are capable of making changes. They may be painful, or uncomfortable. They may or make you feel imposter syndrome. But know that the discomfort is there because it’s rewiring your subconscious to be more like the person you want to be and the ideal you are choosing to strive toward.

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Something that is really human, that we all share in one capacity or another, is an occasional feeling of awkwardness. We feel like we don’t belong, and it consumes us from being more present in the moment because we’re preoccupied about an insecurity. What’s interesting is that awkwardness has nothing to do with other people, it’s entirely within yourself and your own perception of the experience. Kerrie Phipps shares about the nature of this in more detail.

Awkwardness is merely an expression of your self-judgment. It’s how you compare yourself to a fraction of what you see in others. You can’t represent the craziness and awkwardness that’s going on in someone else's head, you can only evaluate what’s being displayed externally. It’s unfair to judge because you’re comparing two very different things.

That’s not to say you aren’t going to encounter more awkward moments, of course you are. But hopefully now you have a new perspective on where that feeling is coming from so you can be more present in those moments.

This is some advice you’ve probably received before, but it's for good reason. The advice is to cut your losses. In personal development there are two sides to the coin. First it’s important to know what to do, and what’s working for you in your life. But that will only get you so far. You also need to know what not to do, and when things aren’t working. You need to have the self-awareness and humility to know when something isn’t serving you. You also need the courage to actually do something about it, which is unnatural but all important.

Psychologically we have a tendency to hold onto previous investments we’ve made because we don’t want to accept loss. This is called sunk cost bias. It’s a phenomenon where you’ve put so much into something that you just can’t let it go. But the unfortunate part is, the longer you hold on the worse outcome you’ll get.

That’s why they call it cutting your losses. Imagine a loss as a thread that’s sticking out of a shirt. You could refuse to acknowledge the problem, ignore it, and hope that the thread will fix itself. But as we know an exposed thread will get snagged on something and stretch even longer. Bt if you cut the thread (aka your losses) then you have a solution and the problem won’t get any worse.

This came to mind because there’s a book I was excited to read that I  wasn’t enjoying. So I chose to cut my losses, I won’t finish it, and instead I'll pick up a different book. Things aren’t going to be perfect all the time. That’s okay! And as long as you have the presence to know when things aren’t working for you, then you can make an adjustment.

Featured is a thought I learned in a Jim Rohn video, which made me laugh but it also has a strong message in it. The quote was “Don’t send your ducks to eagle school.” I mean just picture it… A mallard duck waddling up to Eagle school orientation, where it’s a fraction of the size of all the other birds, and is visibly out of place. The duck isn’t even close to meeting the physical standards of an eagle, and everyone including the duck knows from the onset that it’s set up to fail.

But what’s the underlying lesson to this idea? I think it’s a reflection on self-awareness. In what areas of our lives are we ducks, or working with others who are ducks, but the expectation is to perform like an eagle? Then when we don’t meet up to that expectation, how do we disappoint ourselves and others? It’s human to have many strengths and many weaknesses, and it’s important to know which are which for you and those around you. If you put people out of position, in areas where they’re simply not at their best, then of course there are going to be consequences. Sometimes we try to force fit things or expand roles because it’s the easiest thing to do. But that can be a disservice to everyone involved because it’s not the appropriate use of resources.

There are a few other similar phrases that elaborate on this thought like “Call a spade a spade”, or Einstein’s “If you measure a fish by it’s ability to climb a tree, it will live it’s whole life believing it is stupid.” Having the awareness to know when talents and skills meet needs, both for yourself and others, is an important learning.

I heard a new perspective about happiness that really intrigued me. In talking about positivity, Naval Ravikant, a brilliant entrepreneur who is also a foremost expert on finding happiness in life, shares unhappiness is a sign and you should observe it for what it really is.

You experience unhappiness when one of your needs isn’t being met. Remember, Maslow’s hierarchy of needs are physiological, safety, love and belonging, esteem, and self-actualization. Each are a fundamental requirement for a complete life. When one of those needs aren’t being met you experience an uneasiness which then projects as discontentment, or unhappiness. In observing that emotion, all unhappiness represents is your desire for something to be different. It's a desire to have your physiological needs met, to be safer, to have stronger community and relationships. When you see unhappiness through that lens, it’s simply a way of telling you that things aren’t how you want them to be. That wanting is desire.

If that’s a case, we should welcome our awareness of being unhappy. It’s a blessing to have that knowledge because then we know we need to change our state. Instead of wallowing in our own self-loathing we can reflect on the nature of that desire and what it would take to fulfill it. So let me ask you… In what area of your life are you most unhappy? And after identifying that, what underlying desire do you feel? What unmet need is presenting itself? Explore it.

Personally I’ve been making a lot of big moves in my life, and I wanted to reflect on the value of acting boldly. There is something to be said about standing up for yourself, taking a chance on things you believe in, and moving confidently in the direction of your dreams and desires. Maybe that message is meaningfulI coming from me, but someone who has shaped history through his bold action-taking is former president Teddy Roosevelt. In case you haven’t heard it, I wanted to share his famous “Man In The Arena” speech. Contrary to the title, of course this applies to both men and women.

"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat."

This speech shares an incredible lesson and speaks to the value of the attempt. There is no future payoff without present effort, and the piece that’s always in your control is the effort you put into it. Roosevelt describes that success is found in the process of becoming, not the outcome of doing, and we all must embrace our own process to achieve our own greatness.

Many people have a tendency to move on from one thing to another very quickly. Part of it might be that we lose interest in things and reroute our attention to something else. Another angle is the pressure we feel (whether that be self-imposed or societal) to always be doing something, so we jump on new things when we come up. Moving fast is great but it’s important that it doesn’t come at the expense of the other things you’ve committed to completing. That’s where the concept of “closing the loop” comes in.

You close the loop when there are outstanding pieces that need to be addressed in a project or task. It usually refers to the end of the cycle where you only have the very last things to do, the final 1% that needs to be finished. From a productivity standpoint, you need to consider the mental bandwidth. You are weighed down by knowing that there are still small things left to do. As simple as they might be to complete, they take up a disproportionate amount of emotional energy and act more like an anchor that slows you down simply because it is still incomplete.

From a value-generation standpoint, closing the loop is important because of the opportunities that comes up when you finish. Oftentimes it’s inappropriate for people to talk about new ideas, tasks or projects while the one you’ve already committed to is still pending. Upon completion you can explore what else might be next and ways that your team might want to expand on what was already done. However you can’t have that conversation until the task is behind you, so closing the loop and engaging all parties about the project’s completion will enable more of that creative energy.

It may go against some of the forces you feel, but close the loop and you’ll find that you can be more productive and add more value overall. Are there any conversations, tasks, or commitments looming on your mind you need to address? Maybe it’s time to do it!

Things in life change and develop, expanding and retracting in a beautiful way. With all of these changes you are often presented forks in the road where you need to make a decision. There’s a pressure to get these decisions right because you don’t want to bear the consequences of getting it wrong, or miss the opportunity for having gone another direction.

There’s an unknown to what lies on the other end, so we do as much as we can to research, understand, and forecast how things will be. But you will never have all of the details to know exactly how something will go. Like it or not you cannot predict the future and at one point or another you need to make a decision.

What tends to happen is we want spend so much time in indecision that we pause our growth. We handcuff ourselves to try and understand the best and worst case scenario so that we know what we’re getting ourselves into. But we don’t know what we don’t know, and the last time I checked things don’t go according to plan. So why spend so much time making that ideal plan?

That’s not to say you can’t also be intentional and diligent about your decisions. You can, but you need to use a broader and more value based framework. A mentor of mine, Jim Bunch says he asks himself 4 questions to make any big decision: Does this align with my values? How will this improve my lifestyle? What is the ROI? And can I do this, and am I willing?

After a fair and reasonable amount of thought, just make a decision. That decision will lead to another and another, and through each decision you’ll be moving forward and navigating your life, inching your way toward the things you want. But you cannot begin that process until you make your first decision.