make decisions & take action

On courage and taking action decision-making and priorities life changes the point is not doing something well agency vs ambition

On courage and taking action

Is courage and confidence the same? Or they fall under the same spectrum? Does courage come first, or confidence?

You can tell when someone is quietly confident. When they have a concise sense of their own identity — they don’t need to overcompensate or speak loudly about their successes or wealth or intensity. I know who I am. I know what I need. I know what I want. That internal tranquility is so sacred, so rare. Katherine Anne Porter in an interview once said "I made the mistake of thinking I was quite like anyone else, of trying to live like other people. It took me a while to realize that simply wasn’t true. I had my own needs, and I had to live like me.” I’ve been trying to articulate this for a while now to no avail: I really think true confidence emerges when you stop trying to live in other people’s stories and start living in your own. And to live in your own story is to set your own arc — to find your own voice that rings sweetly through the silence. To recognize and accept your desires instead of running from them — whether they are selfish, absurd, mundane. And to accept responsibility for your choices. Choosing who you love. Choosing what you love. Hildegard: we cannot live in a world that is not our own, in a world that is interpreted for us by others. An interpreted world is not a home. https://nicoles.substack.com/p/internal-confidence

There’s a feeling that goes along with real work. It’s not always positive. It often has fear, frustration or the sense maybe you’ve bit off more than you can chew. But doing the real thing matters. Days wasted on fake activity may keep you busy, but they never seem to go anywhere. A life spent on real work may not always be the easiest or most entertaining, but it’s the one that adds up in the end. https://www.scotthyoung.com/blog/2020/05/04/do-the-real-thing/

"What we are today comes from our thoughts of yesterday, and our present thoughts build our life of tomorrow. Our life is the creation of our mind.”

Professor of philosophy and cognitive science L.A. Paul offers a new lens for thinking about important life choices:

"As we live our lives, we find ourselves confronted with a brute fact about how little we can know about our futures—just when it is most important to us that we do know. For many big life choices, we only learn what we need to know after we've done it, and we change ourselves in the process of doing it. I'll argue that, in the end, the best response to this situation is to choose based on whether we want to discover who we'll become."

Entrepreneur and writer Nat Eliason on the importance of challenging yourself to do hard things:

"The ability to do hard things is perhaps the most useful ability you can foster in yourself or your children. And proof that you are someone who can do them is one of the most useful assets you can have on your life resume.

Our self-image is composed of historical evidence of our abilities. The more hard things you push yourself to do, the more competent you will see yourself to be.

If you can run marathons or throw double your body weight over your head, the sleep deprivation from a newborn is only a mild irritant. If you can excel at organic chemistry or econometrics, onboarding for a new finance job will be a breeze.

But if we avoid hard things, anything mildly challenging will seem insurmountable. We’ll cry into TikTok over an errant period at the end of a text message. We’ll see ourselves as incapable of learning new skills, taking on new careers, and escaping bad situations.

The proof you can do hard things is one of the most powerful gifts you can give yourself."

Author and podcaster Glennon Doyle on the courage to be yourself:

"Your job, throughout your entire life, is to disappoint as many people as it takes to avoid disappointing yourself."

"If you feel resistance before you begin, it's usually procrastination and you need to get started.

If you feel resistance after you begin, it's usually feedback and you need to make adjustments."

"Self-talk strategies:

If you need confidence, talk to yourself the way you would talk to a friend.

If you need persistence, talk to yourself the way you would talk to a student.

If you need patience, talk to yourself the way you would talk to a child."

decision-making and priorities

"Most of us have weak decision-making muscles. We do not realize what it means to make a real decision. We fail to recognize the force of change that a truly congruent, committed decision makes.

The word "decision" comes from Latin roots, with de meaning "down" or "away from" and caedere meaning "to cut." Therefore, a decision means cutting from any other possibility. A true decision means you are committed to achieving a result and cutting yourself off from any other possibility.

Committed decisions show up in two places: your calendar and your bank account. No matter what you say you value, or even think your priorities are, you have only to look at last year's calendar and bank account to see the decisions you have made about what you truly value.

See how you have reserved your time. Look at your expenditures. Those are the trails to the decisions you have made." — Author Carole Hildebrand on making better decisions

"If you're stuck in a negotiation, figure out the 1 thing that is truly non-negotiable for you and then compromise on everything else.”

"Be ruthless about what you ignore. Time, energy, and resources are so precious. You have to be ferocious about cutting your priorities—more than you realize and certainly more than is comfortable.

You can only deeply commit to a few things. One or two? Maybe three?

Every pretty good, sorta nice, kinda fun thing you abandon is like shedding a weighted vest that lets you move at top speed. You were so busy focusing on how much you could carry, you never realized you could run this fast."

"For each headache you face, ask yourself, "Is this mostly real or mostly imagined?"

Solve the real problems, release the imaginary ones."

"If you're stuck on a problem, try solving it at a different level.

If you ask, "What can we do to create a more unified country?" then you end up with vague answers that are difficult to implement. The problem is mostly unmanageable at that level.

But if you ask, "What can I do to create a more unified neighborhood?" then you can likely think of many small things you can do to connect your friends and neighbors.

Zoom in or zoom out. Problems that seem impossible at one level are often quite accessible from a different one."

life changes

Professor of philosophy and cognitive science L.A. Paul offers a new lens for thinking about important life choices:

the point is not doing something well

I'm not very good at it. but it doesn't matter. It's the fun of doing it that's important. No matter how anybody says it is. It feels good to have made something. — Fred Rogers

agency vs ambition

having agency isn’t believing you can change anything, it’s being very in tune with what you can and can’t change, and continually, playfully testing the boundary between the two

Molly Mielke expresses this succinctly:

Ambition means you're motivated to play games that others have already created in the world while agency means you're driven to play a game of your own.

https://lisawehden.substack.com/p/notes-on-ambition-and-agency

Is frustration really a symptom of low agency? You can get frustrated about not having control over things. And having agency is using whatever you have control over to make something happen within your own means.

Intrusive thought: how often is frustration a symptom of low agency https://twitter.com/gptbrooke/status/1554577178360090624

how to develop high agency?

https://sundusalfe.substack.com/p/agency

"Curiosity is the beginning of knowledge. Action is the beginning of change.”

"In theory, consistency is about being disciplined, determined, and unwavering.

In practice, consistency is about being adaptable. Don't have much time? Scale it down. Don't have much energy? Do the easy version. Find different ways to show up depending on the circumstances. Let your habits change shape to meet the demands of the day.

Adaptability is the way of consistency."

the nonchalant era is over: https://open.substack.com/pub/termsandconditionsapply/p/the-nonchalant-era-is-over-be-great

There was a shift where people started acting like effort was a weakness. Where wanting to be great was desperate, and playing it cool was the only respectable way to exist.

We love greatness, but we flinch at the mindset that produces it. We cheer for the GOATs, but we shame people who want to be the GOATs.

Being the best requires more than talent. It requires audacity.