Productivity problems that look like time management problems are usually energy management problems in disguise.

 

Take procrastination, for example. We don’t procrastinate because we lack time — if anything, the research suggests that having too much time makes it more likely that we procrastinate.

Instead, we usually end up procrastinating on our most important work because we’ve wasted our best energy on less important work:

• How often have you found yourself responding to emails instead of drafting up a final report?
• Or cleaning your office instead of working on that watercolor painting you told yourself you were finally going to start?
• And by the time you finally do decide to get down to the really meaningful work, you’ve got nothing left in the tank…?

Technically, this is called procrastination — obsessively working on less important tasks as a way to avoid more important, if challenging, ones.

All that’s to say, being productive has much more to do with energy than time. Specifically…

It’s a lot easier to do your best work with your best energy.

 

So instead of trying to endlessly slice and dice your schedule according to newer and more complex time management tactics, focus on optimizing your energy instead.

Here are a few tips to get started…

1. Identify when you hit peak creative energy

Do you know when you tend to have peak creative energy?

Some people jump right out of bed, ready to start working deeply and creating.

Others don’t really get revved up until the late hours of the night.

And some people have their best energy right after an early afternoon siesta.

It doesn’t really matter when your peak creative energy comes.

What matters is that you understand when it comes and can optimize your work around that time.

If you’re unsure, take a few days or a week and track your energy levels over the day.

Here’s how I’d do it:

• Get a piece of paper and create five columns labeled Mon-Fri.
• Under each column, list the hours of your day.
• Keep this sheet on your desk or with you whenever possible.
• Each hour, make a note of how much energy you had on a scale of 1–10.
• Review and look for patterns after you’ve tracked it for a week.

2. Prioritize your work according to energy requirements

Responding to emails is important, but it doesn’t take much creative energy most of the time.

The same goes for cleaning my office, proofreading a draft, or sitting through most meetings.

On the other hand, writing a first draft of a new article takes a lot of creative energy.

The point is that it’s important to be clear on which tasks require which kind of energy.

Because if you’re not, it’s very easy to end up wasting your best, most creative energy on tasks that don’t need it and then having little leftover when the time comes.

If you already have a good sense for this, great.

But if not, it’s really worth taking the time to:

1. List out all the tasks you need/want to do on a regular basis.
2. Categorize them according to whether they’re low, medium, or high-energy tasks.

3. Schedule your work around maximizing creative energy

Once you understand when you have the best energy and what tasks require the most creative energy, you can plan your schedule around maximizing the overlap between those two.

For example:

• As a writer, my most energy-demanding activity is writing drafts of new articles. Because this activity requires a high level of focus and creativity, it’s very hard to do it well if I try to do it at the end of the day when most of my energy has been depleted by other tasks.
• But I also know this about myself: I don’t have peak creative energy immediately after waking up in the morning. It takes a good shower, a cup of coffee, and about an hour of being awake before I’m ready to really dive into some creative work.
• I also know through experience that this window doesn’t last forever: By mid-morning, I’m definitely past my peak creative energy.
• Based on a clear understanding of the work I need to do and my own energy levels, I know that 6:00 am to 8:00 am is my best creative writing time.

4. Guard your creative energy ruthlessly

Of course, even if you know what your most energy-demanding work is and when your peak creative energy is, that doesn’t mean it’s easy to align them — or rather, that doesn’t mean it’s easy to keep them aligned.

I’ve learned through experience that it’s all too easy to let things intrude upon my peak creative time…

• Someone wants to have me on their podcast but can only schedule me at 7:00 am my time.
• A coworker in another time zone wants to have a meeting at 6:30 am my time
• A cool online workshop is happening one time only at 7:30 am my time

When you have something else important or exciting, it’s easy to rationalize why you should make an exception.

And while there must be exceptions, you probably need to be more careful about this than you realize.

Exceptions tend to be slippery slopes: once you start making them, it gets increasingly easy to keep making them.

And then you wake up one day thinking to yourself: Ugh… I haven’t done any significant creative work in weeks/months/years!

5. Get used to saying “no” by reminding yourself of your values

FOMO is a thing.

It’s hard to disappoint people.

And it’s painful to give up exciting opportunities.

And that’s a big part of why we all struggle so much to set boundaries and say no.

It’s hard because there are very real downsides to saying no and being ruthless about protecting your most creative time and work.

In fact, I think it’s nearly impossible to consistently set healthy boundaries around your creative work unless you make it a deliberate practice to remind yourself of your core values — the things that really matter most to you.

For example:

• It’s very hard to say no to a one-time opportunity to hear Dr. So-and-So give an online lecture about Topic-X-Y-Z that you’re super interested in. But it’s a little bit easier if you take the time to remind yourself of what you would be giving up if you did: I don’t want to be like all those other people I know who call themselves writers but don’t really produce anything. Writing is my passion. It’s what I love doing. And I know that doing what I love takes hard commitments, including sometimes saying no. At the end of the day, being a writer is more important to me than attending this lecture. So I’m going to say no.
• It’s so hard to say no to your boss who wants you to take on this new project. She’s so nice and has been so supportive of you. And it really does sound like a cool project. But it’s a little bit easier if you remind yourself of what’s most important: I’ve committed to Project X being my primary focus. It’s difficult, yes, but it’s the thing I’m uniquely suited to do. Getting to work on something new and shiny is exciting. But at the end of the day, I want to really move the needle and help the company grow. Also, it’s important to me that I do the best work I’m capable of. I want Project X to be A+ work, not A- work, because I allowed myself to be distracted. I know my boss will be initially disappointed that I say no, but I trust that in the long run she’ll understand.

Protecting your creative energy is harder than it seems.

And it’s arguably too hard to do consistently unless you tap into the power of your values by regularly reminding yourself of the whys behind your most important whats.

Final Thought: Work as a function of energy, not time

Here’s a final way to think about the importance of managing your energy:

The returns on highly-focused creative time are exponentially higher than every other time.

Quick example to illustrate:

• I can write an entire first draft for a new article in 90 minutes if I do it at 6:00 am.
• But if I could only write article drafts after 3:00 pm, it would take me 7–10 hours per draft because my energy, focus, and creativity are just so much lower then.

This is why it’s so important to see work as a function of energy, not just time: the output on two hours of low-energy work pales compared to two hours of high-energy work.

It’s an hour-to-energy comparison!

Of course, I understand that real life happens.

And for all sorts of reasons, we can’t always control all our work as well as we’d like.

Still, to the extent that you can given your circumstances, think about your work — especially your creative work — through the lens of energy, not just time.

Many of us have found ourselves in the following scenario:

You go out with a guy or girl who appears to be into you.

But after a few dates, they suddenly lose interest and ghost you.

Most times, this happens. We have no clue what could have caused it.

And this can be very frustrating.

But we don’t realize that during times of intense emotions while trying to impress and attract the person we desire, we make some innocent and well-intentioned mistakes that create the opposite effect of what we intended.

Hence, if you want to stop getting into this blind spot where you knowingly make costly mistakes, here are five frequent errors you should avoid making.

A swollen head caused by insecurity

False confidence is what we put on when we feel we have something to prove to others. And usually manifests by us saying unnecessary things or bragging about ourselves.

For instance, people with false confidence boast about their looks and talk about how many people want them, and they are quick to share all of their accomplishments.

Of course, most people won’t go out of their way to brag about their looks or say how many girls are interested in them when they are on a date.

They are conscious enough to know that will make them look egotistical.

However, false confidence comes across when we are feeling insecure.

We take a reactive approach when we start to feel inferior in social interactions.

When we become too worried about being rejected by the person we desire, we begin to feel an urgent need to say exaggerated things about ourselves rather than show through actions.

Here’s an example:

A woman has plans to go out with a guy she’s dating, but something comes up, and he needs to cancel.

And maybe this is the second time it’s happened.

As a result, she starts talking over the phone about the four guys that are dying to take her out on a date.

She brags about the two other guys she had to turn down to go out with him.

This lady feels the need to tell the guy about these things because she doesn’t feel like the guy appreciates her value.

Hence she goes out of her way to brag because she believes it’s defending her image.

But unknown to her, this only makes her look desperate in front of the guy.

False confidence can creep in on anyone at any time, especially when we become desperate to prove ourselves.

But trying to elevate yourself in the eyes of others only comes off as insecure.

Instead of bragging about proving yourself, learn to talk things out coolheadedly.

When the heat is down, you’re more likely to state your case rationally rather than saying desperate the wrong things out of desperation.

The mistake that makes you come off as desperate

It’s normal to want to know that you’re on the same page regarding your feelings and intentions. However, frequently asking how your partner (or potential partner) feels about you for reassurance is unappealing.

It’s understandable that if the last three or four people you dated ended up ghosting you, it will be natural for you to have the feeling that things are on the verge of falling apart.

But regardless, always asking for reassurance makes you come off as insecure to others.

This lowers your value in their eyes and makes you appear desperate.

As psychologist Dr. Antonio Borello put it,

“It shows that you’re afraid of losing them, making you come off as needy. You’re no longer the challenge. They’ll know they already have you.”

 

Instead of asking for reassurance, pay attention to the person’s body language with you.

Remember, people can tell you what you want to hear and still be lying all along.

But their actions and how they treat you always tell you how they feel.

One-sided conversations

This is a habit that is easy to fall into because staying in contact throughout the day by texting is a fun way of getting to know each other.

And it also gives a feeling of connectivity to the person you’re attracted to.

But texting is only effective when the communication is balanced.

Bring out your phone and take a look at your text conversations.

What do you find?

When you scroll through a couple of days of text, does it appear even or close to being even?

Or do you agree that your conversations are one-sided?

If you notice that you’re pouring out your heart, communicating with him or her but you’re only getting one or two responses in return, that’s evidence of an imbalance in effort and investment.

And this makes you come off as desperate.

As Sherri Gordon wrote in Verywell Mind,

“Anytime one partner texts the other excessively, this is a warning sign. For instance, texting non-stop could indicate that one partner is clingy and needy and feeling insecure in the relationship.”

 

Focusing too much on the relationship goal

Pushing for a relationship too quickly can make you appear desperate.

And this is because wanting a relationship too soon means that you haven’t made the person you desire prove to you that he or she deserves that position in your life.

If they don’t have to prove themselves worthy, it means that you have low standards, which insinuates that you’ll take anyone you can get.

Take the “relationship goal” out of your mind.

When you make something a goal, you start planning and leaving in the future.

You’ll constantly measure your progress toward that goal.

Everything you do when you’re with them will be subconsciously directed toward getting into a relationship.

Furthermore, everything they do that makes you feel worried about your goal not happening is going to make you anxious or upset and probably ruin the dynamic between the two of you.

Therefore, learn to enjoy the time that you spend with each other as much as you do.

Let the relationship unfold organically.

Social media stalking

When you meet a person that you’re interested in, it’s very tempting to go through his or her old pictures and videos because you’re hoping to get a better sense of who they are.

But be careful with this because doing it too frequently makes you come off as desperate.

But you might think, “How will I look desperate if he or she doesn’t know I’m stalking them on social media?”

Well, they may not know immediately, but sooner or later, your behavior is going to show that you’ve stalked them.

Do you know why?

The things you’ve seen on his or her social media handle are going to influence your interaction with them both consciously and subconsciously.

It will have an impact on your mood and your energy.

Eventually, you will unknowingly mention or ask a question about a particular social media friend (or post), and this will let them know that you’ve been stalking.

Furthermore, watching a person’s social media like a hawk is not a good practice because it feeds your insecurity and jealousy.

Another way people stalk on social media is by checking when the person they are into was last online and then worrying about why they haven’t texted or responded to their text yet.

But checking when someone was last online will only make your imagination run wild.

It can become an unhealthy obsession where you’re constantly checking to see what they are doing or who they are communicating with.

And before you know it, you’re checking if you can decode their relationship history based on the posts they’ve liked in the past.

But the needless fear and anxiety about a thing that you know nothing about will come out, and they’ll notice it, making you appear desperate.

Before you leave…

By simply avoiding these mistakes, you can greatly increase your chances of getting respect and admiration from others.

Remember, actions speak louder than words.

It can be quite easy for people to pick up these signs.

Better to understand and cut them out.

To recap, here are the five behavioral mistakes that make you come off as insecure:

• Displaying false confidence to impress the person you’re attracted to.
• Need for constant reassurance because you don’t feel secure about your position in your partner's life.
• One-sided or unbalanced conversations.
• Focusing too much on the relationship goal.
• Stalking on social media.

Sometimes, when people ask you why you like someone, it’s hard to give them a satisfying answer.

You just do, right?

Sometimes you don't even fully understand what attracted you to a particular person so much.

But, even though you might not be able to explain how your brain ticks, psychology can.

Many studies and much research has been conducted in order to understand the psychology behind our actions, choices, and decisions.

You might think you have complete control over these things, but most of the time, the unconscious significantly influences how you think and operate, especially when it comes to your interactions with others.

What follows are four psychological phenomena that have proven to make you more likable.

Read on to discover some fascinating information explaining likability and how our brain works in our social interactions.

Let’s dive right in.

#1. The “Similarity-Attraction” Effect

If you’re among the people who believe that opposites attract, it’s time to rewire your thoughts on the matter.

That’s a relationship myth that, for some reason, remains ingrained in today’s culture — in reality, opposites rarely attract.

In fact, we often find people who exhibit completely opposite qualities from us pretty…repulsive.

Enter the similarity-attraction effect.

It’s a psychological phenomenon that suggests that we are more likely to be attracted to people who are similar to us — in terms of personalities and common interests.

In a popular experiment — that backs up this phenomenon — conducted by American psychologist Theodore Newcomb, male students of the University of Michigan, who were strangers to each other, were asked to give their opinions on controversial topics, such as sex and politics, and then share a student house.

By the end of their stay, the students had grown to like the housemates, with whom they shared the same beliefs about the topics that were measured.

How to apply this phenomenon:

If you want to make a good impression on someone or make them feel more comfortable around you, try to find a point of similarity between you two and highlight it.

Maybe you both are bookworms, love Chinese food, hate the same character from that TV show, or share the same political beliefs.

Whatever it is, make sure you highlight it.

#2. The “Spontaneous Trait Transference” Effect

Here’s a weird fact about how our brain works: We like people more when they compliment others than when they compliment us.

Why?

Because we tend to associate the adjectives a person uses to describe other people with their own personality.

At least, that’s what the “spontaneous trait transference” effect suggests. Multiple studies have backed up this phenomenon, leading to the conclusion that:

“Spontaneous trait transference occurs when communicators are perceived as possessing the very traits they describe in others.”

 

How to apply this phenomenon:

Unfortunately, most of us tend to talk trash about people whose qualities we don’t particularly like and hold back on genuinely complimenting people we admire.

But that hurts ourselves more than it does other people — and this phenomenon proves it.

If you want to make a good impression on others and become likable, simply don’t talk bad about others.

If you have nothing good to say about a co-worker, a relative, or an ex-partner, don’t say anything at all.

And if you do think highly of someone don’t hesitate to compliment them.

Remember, the more positive adjectives you use when you talk about others, the more likable you’ll become — so mind your words when you describe other people.

#3. The ”Emotional Contagion” Effect

Have you noticed that you can boost your mood just by being around happy people?

Or, on the contrary, how having a conversation with a negative, “doom and gloom” person can immediately bring you down?

Emotions are contagious.

We tend to unconsciously absorb the feelings and mimic the emotions of the people around us.

It’s a psychological phenomenon known as the “emotional contagion effect”.

Psychologists describe this effect as:

“Emotional contagion refers to the process in which an observed behavioral change in one individual leads to the reflexive production of the same behavior by other individuals in close proximity, with the likely outcome of converging emotionally.”

 

How to apply this phenomenon:

The fact that you can significantly influence someone’s mood and emotions just by being in their presence is incredible.

You can start by being consciously aware of your own mood and emotions and start paying attention to how the latter affects the people around you.

Then, try to create a positive emotional climate when you’re in the company of others.

Of course, that can’t always be possible — you’re allowed to be sad or angry.

But, you should consciously make an attempt to display positive emotions as often as you can.

People around you will start feeling the same way when you seem content, happy, and confident.

#4. The ”Pratfall Effect”

Have you ever wondered why people like awkward characters in TV shows or movies so much?

Why do we tend to have a soft spot for clumsy people who somehow repeatedly embarrass themselves in front of others by spilling their coffee on themselves, saying the wrong thing, or falling down the stairs?

It’s because the “pratfall effect” comes into play.

American psychologist Elliot Aronson discovered this psychological phenomenon, and it suggests that people tend to like you more after you make a mistake.

Showing that you’re not human, and consequently you make mistakes, makes you seem more relatable and, therefore, likable.

How to apply this phenomenon:

Make a conscious effort to stop being afraid to make mistakes or reveal your faults — at least from time to time.

Obviously, that doesn’t mean you should go around deliberately spilling coffee on yourself or falling down the stairs.

But, you should start feeling more comfortable admitting your mistakes or discussing your faults and weaknesses with others.

You should also stop pretending you’re superhuman or showcasing your successful endeavors and start talking more to others about some of your mistakes or bad decisions you’re not so proud of.

People will immediately feel like they can relate to you — and as a result, they’ll like you more.

Putting It All Together…

Uncovering the secrets behind how your brain ticks and understanding the subconscious way your mind operates gives you a greater understanding of your interactions and can help you strengthen your social life.

To sum it up:

• The “similarity-attraction” effect phenomenon suggests that people are more likely to be attracted to those who are similar to them — so make sure you highlight any similarities you have with the people you want to make a good impression on.
• The “spontaneous trait transference” phenomenon suggests that humans tend to associate the adjectives a person uses to describe other people with their own personality — so mind your words when you describe other people and compliment them as much as you can (but only if you mean it!).
• The “emotional contagion” phenomenon suggests that people tend to unconsciously absorb the feelings and mimic the emotions of others around us — so be consciously aware of your emotions and try to create an emotionally positive climate when you’re in the company of others.
• The “pratfall effect” suggests that people like others more after they see (or hear about) them making a mistake — so don’t hide your mistakes and display your faults more often.

It’s been two and a half years since I thought about killing myself.

That’s up there as one of my personal records I’m most proud of, next to that time I won my Kindergarten classes’ art fair.

I wouldn’t be the person I am today, had I not gone through years of battling depression and recovering from two eating disorders.

It woke me up and now, I can’t go back to seeing the world from a sleeping state.

Even my sense of humor darkened in a way that I can make things awkward at a party at the drop of a hat.

I secretly love that.

But one of the most twisted silver linings of believing my brain was broken and I’d royally screwed up my one chance at living is that I learned the truth about happiness.

Not the mundane garbage splattered across motivational Instagram posts and “Live Laugh Love” signs.

I’m talking about the lessons you can either learn by hitting rock bottom, making the near-impossible choice to continue existing, and clawing your way out of the trenches or reading from someone who’s been there.

If you chose the latter, this article is for you.

It’s seven lessons that I learned by going through my darkest times; the reason I wouldn’t change my past, even if I had the chance.

Feelings are fleeting.

Emotions are tricky little bastards.

Their presence feels all-consuming, to the point that you believe they’re a part of you.

You start to believe you don’t “feel sad” but instead you “are sad.”

The belief that despair would be a part of me for the rest of my life was by far the hardest part of my worst bouts of depression.

I figured I was condemned to a life of toggling between numbness and hopelessness.

But, each time I got through those bouts of depression, I proved to myself that I am not despair and hopeless.

They were simply transients residing in me for a moment's time.

This lesson hit me so hard, that I permanently marked it on my body as my first and only tattoo.

Three black dots (an ellipsis) are marked on my right ring finger as a reminder that when I feel overwhelmed by my feelings, life will continue on, like a thought yet to be finished.

Happiness is about learning to dance with life, not fight it.

I want to say that the above sentence is original, straight from my brain, but I’m almost certain it came from some like Mark Manson or Matt Haig on Twitter.

Either way, this point couldn’t be put more beautifully.

Part of what perpetuated my eating disorder for so many years was a need for control.

Everything felt unstable about my life: I left a job because it was clear they didn’t need me.

I failed at starting a new career as a coder.

Then I was let go from a technical recruiting job.

Not to mention the dumpster fire that was my love life.

My heart was like a revolving door of people who got a glimpse of the disheveled decor inside and decided to keep pushing the door around so the man behind him could have his chance.

The one thing I did have control over was food, though.

I’ve been on nearly every diet that exists.

I can tell you the calorie count of just about any food, give or take 20 calories.

My esophagus is like that of a middle-aged white man who eats donuts for breakfast every morning.

And even though I fought for control, life still had its curveballs.

Because, no matter what anyone does to set themselves up to thrive, things happen.

And the key to making it through life’s obstacles isn’t by fighting every possible chance of sadness that comes your way; it’s about learning to dance.

And by dance I mean, having the tools to help yourself on the days you’re down.

Building thriving relationships as your support system.

Accepting that it’s OK to not feel OK.

Time really does heal.

Tell this to anyone in their darkest moments and you risk getting slapped in the face or, worse, having that person shut off from you.

No one wants to hear that their hardest struggle takes time to get better.

But the fact is, it does.

At the time of my 2019 bout of depression, I was seeing a therapist at my city’s local community center.

I originally went to him to find out why I dated such crappy men but, like many things in life, our sessions quickly turned into uncovering why I was so unhappy with myself.

My therapist gave me tools, activities, and exercises.

He recommended I start taking walks and reading certain books.

And though all of those things combined created the ladder I needed to climb my way out of the sadness, I still needed the time to build the ladder.

You can give someone the tools to heal, but all that does is start the healing.

The process of healing will take time, regardless of how much you try to rush it.

But in that is a bit of hope, too; the assurance in knowing something as simple as time can drastically change the course of your life.

I needed to focus on tiny steps forward, rather than how far I had to go.

Going back to my 2019 community center therapist, I enjoyed his mode of therapy because he focused on little changes, rather than the big picture.

He held me accountable for small modifications I could make between our bi-weekly sessions.

It’s the exact opposite mindset of what I had in 2015 when I started going to eating disorder rehab. I’d scroll on Instagram and see people who were unencumbered by their thoughts around food.

They ate without hesitation; something I hadn’t done in years.

I spent about 80% of my waking time thinking about food.

My days were consumed by counting calories in my head, agonizing over what I ate the day before and would eat the day after, and avoiding seeing myself on any reflective surface.

It was an exhausting existence, and the gap between me and the people I saw on Instagram seemed endless.

But it wasn’t setting my sights on how far I had to go to shorten that gap that helped me recover from my eating disorder.

It was small changes I made that did the trick.

Focusing on how far you have to go can feel disheartening.

But if you can commit to taking tiny steps forward, one day you’ll look back and see how far you’ve come.

I’m in charge of my happiness; not anyone else.

It was never going to be my boyfriend who made me happy.

It was never going to be my therapist who waved a magic wand and created a will to live for me. Not even my friends or family could change my steady state of melancholia.

My fate was always in my own hands.

While support and therapy are essential to people suffering from diseases like depression, eating disorders, and anxiety, ultimately, the change has to come from them.

I realize now the power in asking for help, but I’m in charge of my own happiness.

And that realization has carried with me throughout my life. I need to check in with myself to make sure I’m not slipping back into my disordered eating way.

I have to monitor whether I’m feeling like myself and, if not, I need to be the one to do something about it.

Because, if I wait around for someone else to notice, it’ll be too late.

I’ll be back at square one.

But that’s OK.

I’m always going to be the person who can take care of and prioritize my needs best.

Don’t worry so damn much about being happy.

The pursuit of happiness is a fallacy.

You can be happy right now, at this moment.

There’s no end destination where you’ll finally catch up to the happiness train and ride it into the eternal bliss sunset.

Society puts so much pressure on people to be happy: Choose a job that brings you joy but also a partner that does the same.

Workout because your cortisol levels will decrease and have plenty of sex so your serotonin increases. Have hobbies you love and friends you love more. Because all of this combined will ensure your happiness.

Barf.

When you focus your attention too much on anything, you’re bound to smother it. Happiness shouldn’t be a part-time job but, rather, a byproduct of just having fun with life.

Shifting my focus away from trying to be happy to simply being happy was a game-changer. It led to unexpected happiness because, really, how can anyone know what would make them happy until they try?

As I said, I don’t regret spending years of my life in the grips of two eating disorders or blanketed by the despair of depression.

They’re both what shaped me into the person I am today.

Hell, without them, I wouldn’t be a writer and you sure as hell wouldn’t be reading these words right now.

So take these lessons on happiness and apply them to your life.

Or don’t.

Whatever you choose will end up being your journey; something many of us need to go through to see the light.

When you look around the world, there are a lot of examples of people who look confident on the outside:

From politicians who make sweeping claims and impossible promises to athletes and celebrities who swagger and flaunt from every angle possible, our society is full of fake confidence.

 

True confidence, on the other hand, is harder to spot because it’s less flashy and more humble. Genuinely confident people don’t feel the need to constantly prove themselves—they just go about their lives quietly confident.

Here’s a simple way to think about it:

False confidence hides insecurity. True confidence embraces it.

 

What follows are 7 specific signs that a person possesses genuine confidence.

1. Being compassionate to others

If you wanted to identify people with a high degree of false confidence, what would you look for?

For me, a dead giveaway would be people who are highly critical and judgmental of others.

Like a schoolyard bully, they’re so insecure themselves, that the only way they know to feel good about themselves is to put other people down.

Well, what’s the opposite of hyper-criticalness and judgmentalness?

I’d say something like compassion.

And in my experience, people who are routinely empathetic and compassionate are also quietly confident themselves.

Compassion is the outward sign of inner confidence.

It’s only when you’re not obsessed with yourself and your own insecurities that you can confidently shift your focus to other people in a compassionate and empathetic way.

“There is no exercise better for the heart than reaching down and lifting people up.”

― John Holmes

2. Admitting it when they’re wrong

Humility doesn’t seem to be one of our culture’s favorite virtues these days.

But truly confident people have it.

Of course, humility can be hard to spot because it’s not flashy or sexy, or exciting.

Luckily, there’s a pretty fool-proof test to see if someone has humility — and by extension — confidence: Do they admit when they’re wrong?

Confident people have the self-awareness to know when they’re wrong and the humility to admit it.

If you want to know if someone is truly confident, ask yourself:

When was the last time this person acknowledged they were wrong?

If you’re drawing blanks, that might be a sign that they’re not as confident as they appear.

“The past can’t hurt you anymore, not unless you let it.”

― Alan Moore

3. Being willing to ask for help

People who never ask for help probably have. major. issues with vulnerability.

Which makes sense if you think about it…

When you ask for help, you are admitting at least a little bit of inadequacy.

Of course, it’s perfectly normal to feel somewhat inadequate about things — nobody is an expert at everything!

But some people grow up believing they need to be good at everything.

They’re afraid that if they’re not exceptionally good at everything that crosses their path, it means they’re unlovable.

But when people ask for help, it shows that they have a realistic view of themselves and their abilities.

It means they know they don’t know everything and are interested in growth, not just results.

Confident people are focused on who they can become, not who they think they’re destined to be.

Someone who’s too insecure to ask for help probably isn’t as confident as they seem.

“We are like islands in the sea, separate on the surface but connected in the deep.”

― William James

4. Communicating assertively

One hallmark of genuinely confident people is that they’re okay just being themselves.

They don’t feel the need to wear masks and perform and try to be somebody else.

They’re comfortable in their own skin and basically like the way they are.

As a result, they’re usually able to communicate in a way that’s honest and straightforward — in other words, they’re assertive.

Assertiveness means having the courage to ask for what you want and say no to what you don’t want.

When people lack true confidence, they often resort to other less helpful communication styles like passivity, aggression, or even passive-aggressive communication.

True confidence reveals itself in assertive communication.

“It takes a great deal of bravery to stand up to our enemies, but just as much to stand up to our friends.”

– J. K. Rowling

5. Accepting past mistakes, not dwelling on them

Dealing with mistakes and regrets is a tricky business: On the one hand, you don’t want to live in denial about your mistakes.

But on the other, you don’t want to get paralyzed by them either.

The ability to balance these two tendencies well is a hallmark of genuine confidence and healthy self-esteem.

Confident people reflect on their mistakes but don’t dwell on them.

When a person is willing to confront and reflect on their past mistakes, it shows emotional maturity and self-awareness.

At the same time, the ability to move past one’s mistakes with self-compassion demonstrates a healthy sense of self-respect and balance.

A good measure of confidence is how people relate to their past, especially past mistakes.

“Courage doesn’t always roar. Sometimes courage is the little voice at the end of the day that says I’ll try again tomorrow.”

― Mary Anne Radmacher

6. Setting healthy boundaries

Confident people respect themselves just as much as other people.

This means that they don’t let other people bully them, manipulate them, or walk all over them.

So when push comes to shove, they’re able and willing to set healthy boundaries.

But more than just setting healthy boundaries, true confidence leads to the willingness to enforce those boundaries, even when it’s hard.

Anyone can set boundaries.

Confident people enforce them.

The willingness to enforce healthy boundaries is really a matter of self-respect. When your rights are being violated, setting and enforcing healthy boundaries communicates to yourself and everyone else that you have too much respect for yourself to let that happen.

“If people keep stepping on you, wear a pointy hat.”

― Joyce Rachelle

7. Choosing values, not feelings

A final way to identify truly confident people is to look at what really motivates their decision-making—specifically, are they motivated by their feelings or their values?

When you make decisions from a place of fear and insecurity, it’s easy to get pushed around by your strong emotions and feelings.

On the other hand, when you are confident and secure in yourself, your energy and attention are freed up to spend time getting to know your values and highest aspirations.

Because it’s only when you’re clear about what really matters to you that you’ll be able to resist the whims of the moment and make consistently good decisions.

Confident people use-values, not feelings, to make choices.

“Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”

— Viktor Frankl

All You Need to Know

Here are seven signs of truly confident people:

• Being compassionate to others
• Admitting it when they’re wrong
• Being willing to ask for help
• Communicating assertively
• Accepting past mistakes, not dwelling on them
• Setting healthy boundaries
• Choosing values, not feelings

 

It’s a long-standing truth that people are too hard on themselves.

Psychologist offices around the country fill up because of harsh self-talk.

People assume they are disliked.

They relive old embarrassments for no reason.

In short, we are deserving of more credit than we give ourselves.

There’s a good chance many of you are more charming than you realize.

People dig you.

Even if they don’t, here is a roadmap to ensure they do.

The invisible beauty

Years ago, I was lucky enough to date a fun, kind woman who happened to be very, very beautiful. She could turn the head of a granite statue.

Some days, she came home and said, “Good news! I got us free tickets to the football game!”

I’d ask how and she’d explain that this very nice man gave them to her.

This was common.

She’d get free upgrades and samples at restaurants.

Police always gave her warnings instead of tickets.

The sky seemed to open up and things fell into her lap.

One day, I asked her, “You do know this isn’t normal right?”

She said, “What do you mean?”

I explained that most people don’t just get things and walk around with the entire world showering affection on them.

It wasn’t that she took the world for granted.

It’s that she had a blind spot for the gift she had.

She was always caught off guard when someone told her she was pretty.

She’d seem perplexed, wondering, “Why would they even say that?”

Her obliviousness to her beauty was unbelievably endearing.

For example, she had this casual Instagram account.

She rarely posted pictures of herself.

And if she did, it was her doing some goofy face rather than the, “I’m hot” stoneface. She also wasn’t one of those women who only hung out with other hyper-attractive women.

She accepted people for who they were.

I had a guy friend who was like this, a young Pierce Brosnan-looking fellow, who didn’t care about his looks.

He didn’t try to sleep with every woman in sight.

He was innocently in search for a good time.

If you have an obvious excess in one attribute — looks, intelligence, power, wealth — and you don’t let it go to your head, it suggests you have a “quiet ego”.

It means you are probably much more charming than you realize.

The curiosity that unlocks the like button

Navigating cocktail parties is always a balancing act.

You can easily get stuck in a string of superficial, go-nowhere conversations.

It feels like your car broke down in Smalltalkville.

Worse, you get stuck hearing some guy ramble on about his latest colonoscopy.

People tend to see the world through a lens of self-interest.

When they ask other people about their life, they are often just going through the motions, waiting for their turn to talk, or a reason to bail.

Yet if you genuinely enjoy learning about a person, and asking them questions, there’s a good chance you are quite likable.

Being an active, curious listener makes people feel valued.

You aren’t spending that time talking about yourself, which is a chronic problem in social circles.

You are given fewer opportunities to accidentally brag or overshare.

Seriously though, ask people about their life.

Show interest and be positive.

They’ll love you for it.

You know the direction to point jokes

I was skidding through my freshman year, sleepwalking to classes and nursing hangovers.

I’d just stepped into an elevator on our first day and noticed Professor Kaplan standing next to me. I’d heard about him.

He was allegedly one of the best professors, a former Harvard lecturer.

I turned and said, “Greetings professor! I believe I’m attending your lecture today.”

Holding his notebooks, he turned, smiled, and said, “My condolences.”

And then he proceeded to give one of the best lectures I’ve ever seen. His display of humility in that elevator made him that much more endearing.

Self-deprecating humor, done lightly, and framed in a positive way, is powerfully charismatic.

It makes people feel comfortable and appeals to their insecurities.

But if you make a joke about your third wife leaving you, you might be overkilling it.

Passions and charisma intertwine

Someone smarter than me once told me that if you want to get to know someone, ask them what they are passionate about.

It became one of the most revealing, effective get-to-know-you questions I used.

Quite often, it went fairly unanswered.

People seemed caught off-guard by it.

They’d stammer, pause, think, and say they enjoy traveling and hanging out with friends.

Those weren’t wrong answers per se. But they were quite generic and universal.

Occasionally, there’d be a magnificent answer.

They’d be into woodworking, larping, painting, or something unusual.

Their face lit up and they started showing me their initial terrible paintings.

Then, their paintings got better and better as they swiped.

Their passion for it was intoxicating.

They weren’t doing it for the money.

They just had a hobby they pursued the sake of mastery.

It was an expression of their passion for life and living.

The most important one of all

The quickest way to be more likable, faster than any other thing on this list is laughably simple: just smile.

Beam a smile the moment you see someone.

It signals you are excited to see them.

They’ll feel accepted and liked.

You’ll come off as friendly and warm.

If you already do this, why are you assuming you aren’t charming?

You are already ahead of most people.

Smiles are powerful.

They make you more attractive.

Conversely, they are memorable.

In obituaries, a loved one’s smile is the most commonly mentioned attribute.

So if everything on this list doesn’t describe you, and you feel like the least charming person on Earth, supercharge your charisma with an audacious smile.

Make it big and warm.

Don’t worry about how it makes your face look. Just give them those cheeks.

Remember, charm is a skill that can be learned.

But there is a good chance you are already charming. Here are the signs.

Recap for Memory: five signs you are more charming than you realize

1. You have a self-deprecating sense of humor alongside a light, positive demeanor.
2. You don’t let your gifts and talents get to your head. You accept and treat people the same regardless of appearances. Your Instagram isn't all selfies.
3. You show genuine interest in learning about a person. You ask questions that enable them to talk. You listen without checking your phone or seeming distracted.
4. You have a passion, some hobby that you get excited to talk about. You enjoy the pursuit of mastery for the sake of it.
5. You smile when you run into people you know. You make them feel liked and welcome.

Do you often feel inadequate, like you’re not good enough or unworthy?

• Maybe you never seem to measure up with all your creative and ambitious coworkers?
• Or maybe you tend to feel bad about yourself because your spouse is so patient with the kids and you lose your temper so easily.

Whatever inadequacy looks like for you, it’s a painful thing to live with.

But here’s what most people don’t realize about inadequacy:

Whatever caused your inadequacy initially, it’s usually your habits that are maintaining it.

Anything from early life trauma to unhelpful comparisons can cause you to feel inadequate. The question is, why do you keep feeling inadequate?

In this article, I’m going to walk you through a handful of subtle habits that are keeping you stuck feeling inadequate all the time.

1. Your emotional expectations are unrealistic

I think a lot of us know that unrealistic expectations are dangerous, especially for other people:

• Expecting that your boss is going to be super supportive and nurturing all the time is a good way to end up frustrated and irritable at work.
• Expecting that your spouse will always be compassionate and give you their 100% undivided attention is a good way to end up disappointed and unhappy at home.

Of course, lowering those expectations to a more realistic level (and keeping them there) is still a challenge.

But the point is, in most areas of life, we at least understand that we should look out for unreasonable expectations of other people.

But a major source of feeling inadequate and unhappy comes from our expectations of ourselves.

More specifically, our emotional expectations are way too high.

An emotional expectation is an assumption you have about how you should feel emotionally.

Here are a couple of quick examples:

• You assume that after criticism from your manager at work, you should be able to “just shake it off” and not be bothered by it anymore. But hours later when you’re still stewing about it and feeling anxious, your expectation gets violated which leads to you feel angry or guilty with yourself for still feeling bad.
• You lose someone important in your life. Maybe it’s the death of a loved one or maybe you get broken up with by a romantic partner. Your assumption is that you should feel sad for a couple of weeks but then move on after that and feel happy again — which to you means, not feeling sad anymore about your loss. Well, months go by and you still think about and remember the person you lost, and when you do, you feel sad. But because of your expectation that you shouldn’t feel sad after a couple of weeks, you feel anxious that “something’s wrong with me” because you can’t seem to “let go.”

In both cases, here’s the problem:

When your emotional expectations are unrealistic, you end up feeling bad about feeling bad, which is what really makes us feel inadequate.

Your emotions are not something you can control directly. So it makes no sense to hold yourself accountable for how they should operate.

Drop your emotional expectations for yourself and you will start to feel more and more okay with yourself.

“When you stop expecting people to be perfect, you can like them for who they are.”
― Donald Miller

2. You rely on reassurance to feel good

A big part of inadequacy is low self-confidence.

Think about it: It’d be pretty tough to feel inadequate about yourself if you were very confident in yourself, right?

So one way of looking at the causes of feeling inadequate is to ask yourself, What habits in my life lead to losses of confidence?

And while there could be many sources of low self-confidence in your life, a subtle one that people often miss is reassurance-seeking.

Reassurance-seeking is the habit of relying on other people to feel good.

A few examples:

• Whenever you feel anxious or worried, you immediately call up a best friend, sibling, or parent hoping for some reassuring words to alleviate your fears.
• Anytime you feel indecisive or uncertain, you “check” with a variety of people to make sure it’s not a bad decision before you actually do anything.
• When you feel sad and down, you immediately make plans to be around other people and use them as a way to cheer yourself up rather than sitting with your sadness and trying to understand it first.

There are two big problems with reassurance-seeking:

1. It leads to poor quality relationships and resentment among the people who are closest to you. Despite what they tell you to your face, nobody wants to be relied upon as your primary means of emotional support.
2. It kills your emotional confidence. Emotional confidence is the ability to sit with and manage your painful emotions rather than immediately trying to avoid them or “fix” them. But when you’re in the habit of always alleviating your painful feeling by having someone else reassure you, you’re effectively teaching your brain that you can’t handle difficult feelings on your own.

Sometimes you feel inadequate because you really are inadequate: You don’t know how to handle feeling bad.

And one of the most common sources of genuine inadequacy is that you don’t allow yourself to practice managing difficult feelings on your own.

Which means you never get to build emotional confidence.

And if you’re not confident that you can handle your own feelings, I mean, why wouldn’t you feel inadequate?

“As soon as you trust yourself, you will know how to live.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

3. You dwell on past mistakes

Thought experiment:

• Imagine you have to go through life constantly accompanied by a grumpy little leprechaun who’s constantly reminding you of mistakes you made in the past and what a terrible person you are because of those mistakes.
• Now imagine how that would feel — day-in and day-out to be criticized and reminded of your past mistakes.
• Even on your best days when things are going really well and you’re feeling good and happy and content, all of a sudden the little guy would pipe up and remind you of that tone time you cheated on a test in college. Or that time you cheated on your first wife and your marriage blew up.

Even if you “knew” intellectually that those things were in the past, being constantly reminded of them would make you feel pretty terrible, right?

For a lot of people who feel chronically inadequate, it’s not a thought experiment… that’s their life!

Of course, it’s not a grumpy little leprechaun that’s doing it — they’re doing it to themselves by getting stuck in the habit of rumination or dwelling on past mistakes.

Now, there’s nothing wrong with thinking about your past, including past mistakes.

In fact, it’s one of the primary ways we avoid making more of the same mistakes is by analyzing what went wrong and making a plan to avoid it in the future.

This is called healthy reflection.

And it’s different than unhealthy rumination because of one key variable…

It actually helps!

After you’ve made a mistake, taking some time to reflect on it will probably be helpful.

But the law of diminishing returns sets in pretty quickly with reflecting on our mistakes:

• Spend a few hours thoughtfully reflecting on a mistake… It’s going to be painful, but you’re probably going to learn a lot, which in turn will increase your odds of not making the same mistake again.
• Spend a few hours multiple times per month thinking about a mistake… Well, you might still learn a thing or two, which could be helpful to some degree. But it’s unlike your return on investment for that thinking time is even close to as high as it was for the first few hours. But it’s still going to be just as painful.
• Spend a few hours multiple times per week for years thinking about your mistake… At this point, it’s basically all side-effects (guilt, shame, regret) and no benefit.

The lesson here is pretty straightforward:

Thinking about past mistakes is a good idea if it’s actually productive and leading to new insights and better behaviors.

Unfortunately, many people get stuck in the habit of ruminating on their past mistakes well past the point where it’s productive, which means they get to feel bad about themselves and inadequate without any compensating upside.

The next time you find yourself dwelling on a past mistake, ask yourself this question: Is continuing to think about this actually helping anyone?

“As long as the world is turning and spinning, we’re gonna be dizzy and we’re gonna make mistakes.”
― Mel Brooks

4. Your values are unclear

Famous New York Yankees catcher Yogi Berra famously said…

If you don’t know where you are going, you’ll end up someplace else.

 

I always think about that line when I talk to people about the importance of values for emotional health.

To be clear, I don’t mean religious or moral values necessarily.

What I mean is personal values — the things that matter most to you in your life.

It might be something like honesty or justice, but it could also be something like spending quiet time in nature or being a good listener.

Values matter because without them — without a clear idea of what’s important to us and which direction we want to be heading — it’s really easy to get lost.

Specifically, it’s easy to end up making all our decisions in life based on how we want or don’t want to feel, rather than basing our choices on what we really want out of life.

And this brings us to inadequacy…

Feeling inadequate is often the result of living someone else’s life instead of your own:

• You work in a career that you don’t really enjoy or find meaningful because it’s prestigious and looks good to your family, friends, and society.
• You defer important decisions to your spouse or coworkers because you feel unsure of yourself.
• You marry someone because they “check all the boxes” but you don’t actually enjoy being around them that much.

Feeling inadequate comes from knowing deep down that you’re not living the life you really want.

Just like inadequacy can come from a comparison between yourself and other people, it can also come from a comparison between your actual life and the one you really want to be living.

And if there’s a big discrepancy there, there’s a good chance you’re going to feel a lot of inadequacy because you’re not living up to your own standard.

So, what do you do if that’s the case?

Well, a big reason why we don’t live up to our own standards and values is that we actually aren’t very clear about them what our personal values are!

On the other hand, when your personal values are clear, they exert a much stronger motivating pull on you.

And once you’re more motivated to live life on your own terms, feeling inadequate tends to fade.

If you want to feel less inadequate, start living the life you really want.

If that seems daunting or confusing, start by getting to know your values.

“It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.”
― J. Krishnamurti

All You Need to Know

If you feel chronically inadequate, there’s a good chance one or more of these underlying causes is to blame:

1. Your emotional expectations are unrealistic
2. You rely on reassurance to feel good
3. You dwell on past mistakes
4. Your values are unclear

Low self-worth is one of the most common but under-discussed issues people face today.

Unfortunately, many of the tips and tricks you hear about for improving your self-worth either aren’t really helpful or even make things worse.

For example, simply rehearsing unrealistically positive statements about yourself or the future — a form of “toxic positivity” — can actually make you feel worse in the long run.

If you really want to feel better about yourself, you need to address the core issues creating low self-worth in the first place.

In my work as a psychologist, I’ve seen 4 core psychological drivers of low self-worth that are the most common.

Work to address these and your natural self-worth will rise.

1. Judgmental self-talk

Imagine that all day, every day, you’re followed around by a grumpy little elf who does nothing but criticize you, insult you, and tell you how worthless you are.

Now, even if I told you,

Listen, nothing this little guy says is actually true about you, so don’t worry, how would you feel if you had to live with someone constantly putting you down, day-in and day-out, at work, at home on vacation, and in your bed at 2:00 am when you can’t sleep?

Pretty terrible, right?

Well, that’s exactly what most people with low self-worth do to themselves!

They constantly criticize and judge themselves in their own heads.

They tell themselves how worthless they are and how bad everything is.

And all this despite knowing intellectually that most of it simply isn’t true.

Whether you actually believe the content of your self-criticism or not, the activity of doing it is killing your self-worth.

If you want to improve your self-worth, it’s essential that you stop being overly critical and judgmental of yourself in your own head.

Negative self-talk can be an especially difficult habit to break, but at the end of the day, it is a habit. And habits can be broken.

Work to replace your negative self-talk with self-compassion, and you’ll find your self-worth will improve dramatically.

“Words matter. And the words that matter most are the ones you say to yourself.”

― David Taylor-Klaus

2. Reassurance-seeking

One of the worst habits people with low self-worth get into is chronic reassurance-seeking.

Reassurance-seeking means relying on other people to feel better.

For example:

• You feel anxious about an upcoming job interview, so you call your mom hoping that she’ll tell you everything will go fine.
• You feel angry about something that happened at work today, so you vent to your spouse expecting that they’ll confirm how terrible your boss is and make you feel better.

The reason reassurance-seeking is such a bad habit when it comes to low self-worth is that it destroys your emotional confidence.

Emotional confidence is the ability to tolerate difficult emotions without trying to avoid them or get rid of them.

When you constantly try to escape from or “fix” your painful emotions — including by using reassurance-seeking to get other people to alleviate them — you teach your brain that difficult emotions are dangerous and that you can’t handle them.

So while you might get some temporary relief at the moment, you fraternize yourself in the long run and make it more likely that you’ll be afraid of those feelings in the future.

Now, think about it: How much self-worth can you feel if you’re constantly teaching your brain that you’re incapable of handling difficult emotions on your own?

When you outsource feeling better to other people you kill your confidence, and with it, your sense of self-worth.

One of the best ways to improve your self-worth is to learn how to validate your emotions and accept them instead of always trying to get rid of them.

“No man is more unhappy than he who never faces adversity. For he is not permitted to prove himself.”

— Seneca

3. Fear of being assertive

Many people grow up only seeing two examples of how to communicate: passively and aggressively:

• Passive communication is when you’re so concerned about other people and what they want, that you don’t speak of yourself and express your own wants and needs clearly.
• Aggressive communication is when you try to get what you want in a way that’s rude, disrespectful, or downright hurtful to other people.

Many people — especially women — are taught that you should always defer or put aside your own wants and needs in order to make others happy.

Combine this with a natural fear of conflict that many of us have, and you get a lot of people who are basically afraid to ask for what they want or say no to what they don’t want.

In short, they’re afraid to communicate assertively — to express themselves and their wants in a way that’s honest but also respectful of others.

Now, think about this situation from your brain’s perspective:

What are you teaching your brain if you always prioritize other people over yourself?

Yeah, that other people are more important than you are!

If you constantly treat yourself as less important than others, don’t be surprised if you start to feel that way.

The solution is to practice communicating assertively.

This means being willing to express what you actually want and set healthy boundaries on what you don’t want.

And even though this can feel quite difficult if you’ve been a doormat your whole life, that doesn’t make it any less important.

If you want to feel better about yourself, you need to stand up for yourself.

And the best way to start standing up for yourself is to learn how to communicate assertively and how to set healthy boundaries.

“If you don’t have a seat at the table, you’re probably on the menu.”

― Elizabeth Warren

4. Thinking too much about self-worth

Here’s the counterintuitive thing about people with healthy self-worth: They don’t spend much time thinking about their self-worth!

Now, you might say:

Well, of course they don’t. It’s easy to not worry about your self-worth when you feel good about yourself!

 

True, having healthy self-worth certainly does make it easier to not fall into habits that lower your self-worth. But that doesn’t mean the causality is only one way…

Spending too much time thinking about self-worth is an inherently judgmental activity that tends to make people feel worse about themselves.

See, the minute you start asking the question Am I worthy enough you’ve already lost because you’ve put yourself in an unrealistically critical and judgmental mindset.

Think about it: How could you possibly judge yourself as being worthy or not?!

To be frank, whether or not you are worthy as a person is a dumb question.

Your proficiency as a competent plastic surgeon according to the national board of plastic surgeons might be up for discussion.

But your worthiness as a person globally isn’t really something it even makes sense to start to judge.

If you want to feel more worthy or worthwhile, stop obsessing over whether you are or not.

Because the minute you make your dignity as a person something to be judged, you’ve guaranteed that you’ll feel bad about it.

Instead, focus on what you really want to do in life. What are your personal values and what can you do to do move toward them in a meaningful way?

I think you’ll find that a far more productive and enjoyable question to ask yourself.

“If you don’t prioritize your life, someone else will.”

— Greg McKeown

All You Need to Know

If you want to improve your self-worth and feel better about yourself, address these 4 core causes of low self-worth:

• Judgmental self-talk
• Reassurance-seeking
• Fear of being assertive
• Thinking too much about self-worth

There’s this feeling that I crave.

It’s the feeling of learning something.

Something insightful.

Something life-altering.

I love it.

I search it out.

In conversations with others, in the books I read, in the podcasts I listen to, I’m constantly searching for more.

It’s exciting.

It’s rewarding.

I can almost feel my brain lighting up in response.

I’m not working towards any endpoint in particular.

Rather, learning is both a means and an end for me.

Like someone who runs because they enjoy running.

But consuming only goes so far.

You must be able to apply those lessons in the real world.

There are four ideas in particular that have allowed me to be more intentional with my time.

That has allowed me to overcome obstacles, improve my focus, and much more.

They are lessons that have enhanced my productivity and, in turn, my life fulfillment.

I’ve stolen these ideas and have implemented them into my own life. You may just find you want to do the same.

1) Fool me once

You hit send too early.

The email was only half-finished and now it’s out of your hands.

You feel like a dunce.

So what do you do?

The average person would send a follow-up email explaining the situation.

Then they’d go about their day.

You do the same.

A week later, you’re back at your desk drafting an email.

Unedited, you again hit send a little too early.

This time you forget to include several details needed for an upcoming project.

Worse still, it was an email to your boss’s boss.

Not good.

In short, you once more are caught wearing the dunce cap.

In Failing Forward by John C. Maxwell, the author explains the value of actively learning from mistakes.

How, whenever something doesn’t go as planned, you should write down what happened (ie. the failure or shortcoming), what you learned from it, and how you can do things better next time. Especially if you’ve made the same mistake two or more times as it means you haven’t learned from it yet.

Applying Maxwell’s lesson, I have a Google Doc where I do just that.

I call it my Learn Log and when I blunder I write out:

• What I ideally wanted to happen;
• What actually happened;
• Why I think it didn’t go as planned;
• What I will do differently next time.

By doing this, I bring awareness to my errors. I actively take responsibility and chart a better course forward.

At your next misstep then, try following this prompt. Learn from your past and make your future even more promising.

2) Hold the fries

It’s Sunday night and you feel like going for it.

With your stretchiest of sweatpants on, you pull up to a local fast food spot ready to feast.

But as you prepare to order, you become overwhelmed.

Your eyes cross.

Your brain freezes.

“I need a minute,” you say into the box.

On the display before you is a dizzying array of menu options.

Breakfast and dinner choices.

Tacos, burgers, sandwiches, eggs.

They even have salmon for some reason.

You back out of the line and head to In-N-Out instead.

In In-N-Out Burger by Stacy Perman, the author covers the life of the successful burger chain.

Unlike other chains, In-N-Out’s menu is simple.

You have one option: a burger. You can add cheese if you’d like.

Or an extra patty.

Or a side of fries.

But at the most basic level, it sells burgers.

And that’s it.

Founded by husband and wife, Harry and Esther Snyder, Harry’s maxim was: Do one thing and do it well.

He intentionally kept the menu simple and streamlined, not seeing an advantage to adding new items or changing recipes.

Today, where other chains flounder, In-N-Out boasts long lines day after day (and they’ve been around for just as long as their competitors).

The simple In-N-Out menu allows them to stay efficient — they don’t have to deal with the complexity of extra ingredients.

It also allows them to invest in what they do sell — they don’t have to spend money on R&D and can thus better invest in the product.

In my business, I often find myself thinking of In-N-Out.

Of how I can simplify what I do, better improve the quality of what I offer, and remove complexity. It’s a lesson you can apply to anything to increase your effectiveness as well.

3) Spot the difference

Language is a funny thing.

A concept can feel blurry until you learn of the right word for it.

Then suddenly everything clicks.

After reading Free To Focus by Michael Hyatt, this very thing happened to me. In his book, he breaks every goal into two distinct camps:

• Habit goals
• Achievement goals

Habit goals are those goals that repeat.

They are ones you want to become a habit.

To become part of your lifestyle.

For example, goals like read two books a month or run five miles a week are habit goals.

They repeat and don’t have a clear endpoint. You just keep going until it feels like they’re part of who you are.

Achievements goals are those with a set destination.

They are goals that are generally one-offs.

You do them once and are done.

For example, goals like read two books by February 1st or run a marathon by October 15th are achievement goals.

They have a deadline.

Once the deadline passes, the goal is complete.

You either achieved it or you didn’t.

This understanding of the two types has helped me set better goals for myself. It has helped me decide which goals I want to be part of my lifestyle and which I simply want to do once.

It has clarified my thinking.

And it has allowed me to be more intentional with my goal-setting efforts.

It can do the same for you.

4) There’s nothing to see here

“Don’t you think you should be on Facebook?” someone recently asked of me.

My response: “Nope.”

In a world where everyone is everywhere, I am virtually nowhere.

And I’m nowhere intentionally.

You won’t find me on Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook, or TikTok.

Not on Twitter or on LinkedIn.

Not in a house and not with a mouse.

I do not like green eg — alright, you get it.

I’m nowhere by design.

In an episode of the Tim Ferriss Show, guest Seth Godin explains the power of constraints.

How you should set them for yourself so as to make clearer decisions.

Otherwise, you can get lost in the world of endless options.

For example, he explains, you can set constraints as to where you will or won’t be online.

Decide why you are setting those constraints and then stick to them like the walls of a hockey rink.

Because without the walls, there is no game.

You’re just skating on a giant pond.

In defining what isn’t, you can focus on what is.

Put another way, by clarifying where you won’t be, you can put energy into the places you are.

Personally, not being on social media allows me to utilize my time in better, more fulfilling ways. Professionally, it allows me to work on the areas of my business that I want to grow, not where I feel required to grow.

Instead of giving a sliver of my attention to 20 different platforms, I can concentrate on the one or two places I feel hold the most potential.

By setting constraints for yourself, you can do the same.

Moving forward as a thief

If these lessons resonate with you, steal them from me as I stole them from others.

Let them improve your effectiveness and thus create a more intentional life for yourself.

To repeat them once more, they are:

1. Actively learn from your mistakes.
2. Simplify the things you do.
3. Set different goals depending on your desires.
4. Erect constraints to better define your focus.

Create a Learn Log for yourself.

Start using it.

Recognize the complexities around you.

Remove the superfluous so as to improve the significance.

Set habit goals based on the lifestyle you yearn for.

Set achievement goals for those things you want to accomplish once.

Establish constraints.

Decide what isn’t worthy of your time so that you can focus on what is.

After I get a pay raise, I want to work harder.

After I win a Jiu-Jitsu tournament, I want to go all-in on my “real life Dragon Ball” dream and sleep on a mat chasing world titles for a living.

After I write something I’m proud of, I want to move to a cabin in the woods and become the next Hunter S. Thompson — minus all the cocaine, of course.

My problem isn’t that I have no interests or even that I have too many interests.

My problem is that I’m chasing the dopamine.

I just want to go wherever I’m going to feel the best, and because I do so many different things, the thing that makes me feel best is always changing.

I’m more impulsive and less self-aware than I thought I was, and external influences like my family, peers, and of course, social media really aren’t helping me figure it out.

But a false sense of self-awareness isn’t just my problem, either.

There’s research that suggests that close to 80% of people lack true self-awareness, though 95% of people believe they’re self-aware.

Obviously, the laboratory definition of self-awareness isn’t everything, but it’s still a compelling figure that leads to an important question: are you like “most people”?

Is your self-awareness a lie?

You probably won’t want to admit it, but it’s very easy to fake emotional intelligence and self-awareness without even realizing that the one you’re fooling most is yourself.

In a world that’s devoid of deep meaning and a true encouragement for spiritual connection, are you “Tyler Dryden-ing” yourself to survive the day?

What Do You Really Want?

If you don’t know what you really want, you’re not alone.

Unfortunately, however, you’re also going to be highly susceptible to the influence of people around you, emerging technology, and worse of all your own biochemical brainwashing.

When it comes to external influencing, lost minds are the same as weak minds.

Most of the kids that I grew up with are for the most part following a very similar track in their early twenties.

Most of them went to college, got degrees, went to a lot of football games, drank obscene amounts of cheap beer, and now are either getting Master’s degrees or working corporate jobs.

I don’t have hard data on this, but if you’d like, I can show you my LinkedIn connections list.

But why is everyone doing the “same thing”?

Could it be because they all want the same thing?

Am I wrong in thinking that most people are lying to themselves about what they want out of life?

It’s completely possible.

I certainly don’t know everything there is to know about growth, self-awareness, and emotional intelligence.

However, I’m also fairly certain that there’s a lack of introspection that happens amongst young people, and so it doesn’t really surprise me that many people are funneling themselves through life following “traditional” paths that correlate to high rates of burnout and chronic mental illness.

But unfortunately, high rates of professionals are caused by a much deeper and more complex conundrum than just a lack of introspection.

It’s going to take more than a week off or a spiritual retreat to really get to know yourself, especially because getting to know yourself today is harder than it’s ever been.

It’s Getting Harder to Know Yourself

When you imagine your identity, what words come to mind?

I’ll go first: I’m a white, heterosexual man, a son, an ADHD person, a copywriter, a writer, an athlete, a teacher, and a martial artist.

This might sound like a lot of (albeit not very diverse) hats, but really these are just words that I use in order to help my peers and me understand my place in the world.

In reality, these words don’t mean anything about my level of self-awareness or how well I “know myself”.

It takes no self-awareness to label yourself.

It might sound corny, but true inner self-awareness goes far beyond the confines of language and social understanding.

It’s also really hard to attain.

I’ll make a bold claim: most people don’t know themselves.

Part of the reason why could be because modern society does not encourage introspection and writes it off as “hippie liberal mumbo jumbo”, but really the root of a lack of cultural self-awareness goes much deeper than the toxic, over-complained about hustle culture.

Perhaps the real reason that it’s so difficult to know yourself in the modern world is that there is just too much that you can be.

To make matters more complicated, many parts of your identity are socially constructed both by you and your peers.

The world around you is always changing (now faster than ever), and so is your identity.

The crisis comes when these identity evolutions are happening too fast for our brains to fully comprehend.

The human mind evolved over hundreds of thousands of years, what makes you think you can figure yours out in a day, week, or even year?

The Reason to Play the Game Is to Be Free of It

The biggest philosophical lesson that I’ve learned in the past 6 months is that the “self” as we know it is an illusion.

I freakin’ love this idea.

In Western culture, we’re obsessed with self-awareness and self-discovery.

This seems great, but really, we’re obsessed with something that doesn’t even exist outside of the confines of consensual human fiction.

Our obsession with identity as a concept is both an individual and societal roadblock that is blocking humanity from reaching a collectively higher rate of “self-awareness”, happiness, and perhaps even spiritual evolution.

The confines of what constitutes an identity are always changing.

For example, if you asked a farmer from the 1500s to “identify himself”, he’d have far fewer determining aspects of himself to choose from and even fewer aspirations.

People just didn’t have the same options for self-expression in the 1500s as someone does today.

This does not make the farmer from 1500 more self-aware or less self-aware.

If anything, it means that he was playing the self-awareness game with a multitude of missing pieces. The answer says more about the game than the player.

Perhaps today, we are playing the same self-awareness game with so many pieces that we’ve gotten distracted from the reason that we started playing in the first place — to improve the human condition.

Human beings come in all shapes, sizes, genders, orientations, colors, and creeds.

The reason that we “identify ourselves” is to both understand ourselves and the world around us and collectively improve the human experience.

Though the self might be an illusion, it’s a very important one.

Your identity is important because it allows you to both connect with and separate yourself from the world around you.

Individuality is important, especially if you’re on a team.

To “know yourself” isn’t really to discover everything that’s lurking in each corner of your psyche.

To truly know yourself is to take each aspect of yourself that’s already there and to accept it, regardless of consequence.

The self may be an illusion, but you won’t be able to understand that until you’ve accepted your “self”.

Closing Thoughts

Don’t let my fancy philosophy rant fool you, I’m not as self-aware as I come off to be.

That was a tough but necessary pill for me to swallow.

However, by realizing and accepting that, I’m becoming more self-aware.

The more self-aware I become, the less necessity I have for my “self” because I’m more connected to the deeper sense of purpose that drives me every day.

The more I accept my identity, the less I’m fighting it and the less it matters.

That, in my understanding, the first step to peace and progress.

Whether it’s writing, martial arts, or just being a kind human being, there are plenty of worthwhile pursuits that I can be doing even without a resounding sense of self-mastery or self-awareness.

If anything, these are the things I should be doing in order to pursue self-mastery and a connection with the heart of my consciousness.

There’s undeniably something magical about the human experience that can’t be explained with the labels that society and language have created for us.

Maybe the disconnect that we have from that hidden magic is the real reason a deep sense of self-understanding is eluding us in the first place.

Struggling with life?

Frustrated with your career?

Settling for less in your dating and relationships?

The common suggestion is that you should “be yourself” and, magically, you’ll do just fine.

False.

In reality, “being yourself” seriously limits your results and stunts your personal development and growth. I’ll explain why this advice holds you back, exactly who you should “be” instead, and the simple steps to become that person so you can reap all the benefits. Here’s how:

Why “Being Yourself” Holds You Back

There’s a lot of codewords that mean the same thing as “just be yourself:”

• “Be true to yourself.”
• “Do what speaks to you.”
• “Do what feels right.”

On the surface, it seems like nice advice to trust yourself and your instincts; but in reality, it reinforces a fixed mindset, entrenches you in your current situation, and justifies your personality and results in life:

“People believe they have an “authentic” self — their “truth” — which is who they should be true to... This line of thinking leads people to saying things like, “I need to be true to myself. I shouldn’t have to deny myself of how I’m feeling. I shouldn’t have to lie to myself. I should be able to do what feels right to me.” Although well-meaning, this thinking reflects a fixed mindset… I know many people who now, as maturing adults, are choosing limiting lives in the name of “authenticity” and being “real” with themselves.”

— Dr. Benjamin Hardy

 

This begs the question: What if “yourself” has poor, self-destructive traits? Or at a less-extreme level, what if “yourself” is awkward, boring, or unambitious?

Then, you probably shouldn’t be yourself because, if you do what you’ve always done, you’ll get the results you’ve always gotten.

For example, 12 years ago, I would’ve described myself as introverted, socially awkward, skinny, resentful, and angry. (Sure, I had positive qualities too, but those negative adjectives were pretty damn accurate.)

If I just tried to “be myself,” I would’ve never made any effort to change.

Instead, I would’ve clung to the life I had—and kept repeating the same mistakes and patterns—rather than abandon it for a better life. I would’ve never worked to transform my personality and I would’ve blocked my own progress and growth:

“If authenticity is the value you prize most in life, there’s a danger that you’ll stunt your own development. When I was in grad school, a friend asked me to give a guest lecture for her class. I was terrified of public speaking, but I wanted to be helpful, so I agreed… It was brutal. One student wrote that I was so nervous I was causing the whole class to physically shake in their seats. My authentic self was not a fan of public speaking. But I started volunteering to give more guest lectures, knowing it was the only way to get better. I wasn’t being true to myself, I was being true to the self I wanted to become.” [emphasis added]

— Adam Grant, Ph.D.

 

“Being yourself” doesn’t show you how to achieve what you want and it doesn’t motivate you to reach beyond your comfort zone and try new strategies.

(Thankfully, even 21-year-old Anthony knew “being yourself” was shitty advice so he actually worked to improve himself.)

Finally, the fact is who you “are” actually depends on your context:

Your personality reflects your environment and its norms, rules, traditions, expectations, and more. Thus, “being yourself” is meaningless because “yourself” isn’t static—it’s always evolving even if you feel the same.

“Human beings are works in progress that mistakenly think they’re finished. The person you are right now is as transient, as fleeting and as temporary as all the people you’ve ever been. The one constant in our lives is change.”

— Daniel Gilbert, Ph.D.

 

At this point, some of you might be thinking, “Well, if you don’t want me to be myself, then do you want me to be someone else?”

Not quite.

Instead of telling you to “be yourself,” here’s some far better life advice:

Be the person you want to be.

 

Who is your dream self?

What are they doing?

How are they living?

It’s infinitely more powerful to be this person through your behaviors and actions than to “be yourself” and cement your current way of life.

Best of all, once you become the person you want to be, you’ll have all the things you want to have.

Here’s how to become this person:

How to Become the Person You Want to Be

“The privilege of a lifetime is to become who you truly are.”

— Carl Jung

 

Step 1: Define Your Ideal Life

Many people have no idea what they want.

They might say a few clichéd things like “be happy,” “travel,” “retire early,” etc., but their goals are vague (at best) or things that other people told them to want (at worst).

Instead, define what you want and be very specific.

Try describing your ideal life:

What’s your ideal relationship partner like?

What’s your ideal career?

What’s your ideal lifestyle?

Be detailed and think about what you really want, not what you think you should want.

The point of this exercise isn’t to make it happen with 100% accuracy; the point is to understand what is important to you and give you direction.

Step 2: Be Honest With Yourself

Answer this question:

Based on who you are at this very moment, can you achieve this ideal lifestyle?

Yes or no. (No “maybe.”)

Can you honestly achieve your ideal life based on where you are right now?

For many people, the answer will be a difficult, “No.”

For many people, they’ll see a huge gap between “who they currently are” and “their dream life.”

Step 3: Become The Person Of Your Dreams

It took me years to understand this powerful lesson:

 

The best way to get the life of your dreams is to become the person of your dreams.

 

Many people only focus on getting what they want without realizing that every journey starts from within.

As a result, they do nothing to improve, which is the equivalent of saying, “I want my dream life, but I don’t want to do anything differently to get it.”

Instead, define who you have to be in order to achieve your ideal life.

This step is the most important of all.

What are your values?

What personality do you need to have?

What are you working on?

How do you take care of yourself?

Be very detailed.

Life is a movie: You’re the director and you write the script.

You decide who you’re going to be.

If you’re struggling in life and upset with your lack of results, what are you going to do about it?

Yes, it’s hard work to become this person.

Yes, there’s no guarantee you’ll get exactly what you want.

But as you work on yourself, improve yourself, and become the person you want to be, the odds you’ll achieve your dream life will skyrocket — and you’ll know you manifested it.

So stop “being yourself” and start “being your dream self.”

Your dream life awaits.