couldn’t have more week ahead of me if I tried. I refuse to accept that the minute I wake up on Monday morning it’s already “too late.”
“If you had more time, you could get it all done.”
Nonsense. My definition of all would just grow. And why is “done” a goal? If you discover something you love doing, you don’t want to be done. You want to do it every day. Done is dead.
After a few minutes of writing, the absurdity of fear’s view of time started to come to light. And it is absurd, because fear tries to tell you two things about time: “Do it later” or “It’s too late.”
The first delays you with laziness. The second destroys you with regret.
And neither is true.
Unless you’re dead right now, it’s not too late. Don’t give credence to the calendar fear and doubt want to show you. It’s incredibly heavy and never includes a page for “today.” Fear and doubt’s calendar always starts with yesterday or tomorrow.
You’ve got today, and today is all you need to start. The rest will come into view as you go.
3. It has to be perfect.
As I mentioned earlier, fear and doubt are schizophrenic. Their favorite thing to do is argue both sides of the coin so that you don’t have a side to stand on. They love to tell you, “It will never work,” and, “It has to be perfect.”
The first thought tells you that no part of your dream will succeed. The second thought tells you that every part of it must succeed. That doesn’t make even a little bit of sense, but you will hear both voices.
This one is pretty easy to defeat. The reality is that since the dawn of time there hasn’t been a single situation fear thought would work. If you ask fear if something is going to work, the answer will always be no.
Fear would have told the Wright Brothers not to fly. Fear would have told Rosa Parks to change seats. Fear would have told Steve Jobs that people hate touchscreens.
Don’t even ask it for advice. You know its answer. Just move on.
Those are the three most common messages, but you will hear others. I’ve asked thousands of people what their voices tell them, and they’ve had thousands of different answers.
I once asked a group of youth ministers what their voices told them. They told me things like:
“You work with kids; you’ll always be a kid; you’ll never be a real man.”
“You never went to seminary—who are you to teach kids?”
I asked a group of men what their voices told them, and a guy in the front row shouted out, “Wait until your father gets home.” He was in his mid-50s. He hadn’t lived at home for thirty years, and yet that fear still rang loudly in his head.
If you don’t deal with your voices, they don’t go away. They don’t naturally get smaller.
Doubt and fear are like muscles. Every time you believe a lie about yourself, it gets easier to believe it the next time. If you listen to your voices for the next ten years, they’ll only be stronger in ten years. They’ll get louder and closer to the surface. They’ll need less proof to pop up and get all mouthy.
Simply put, if you don’t kill your voices, they will kill you.
But we’re not going to let that happen. We’re not going to become emotional hoarders, storing up anger and bitterness before eventually moving to Florida and assuming that everyone is out to get us and our little dog.
We’re going to beat our voices by doing two things:
1. Documenting them.
Voices are invisible bullies, and they hate when you make them visible. The best way to do that is to dress them up with words. To write them down in a simple notebook. They can’t stand to be documented, because the minute they are, you can see how stupid they are. Lies hate the light of day.
Every time you take a step toward being awesome and a voice gets loud, write it down. Don’t ask, “Is this a voice?” before you do. Just write. Fast and furious and imperfectly. Scribble as many as you can down, and then refute them with
“If you had more time, you could get it all done.”
Nonsense. My definition of all would just grow. And why is “done” a goal? If you discover something you love doing, you don’t want to be done. You want to do it every day. Done is dead.
After a few minutes of writing, the absurdity of fear’s view of time started to come to light. And it is absurd, because fear tries to tell you two things about time: “Do it later” or “It’s too late.”
The first delays you with laziness. The second destroys you with regret.
And neither is true.
Unless you’re dead right now, it’s not too late. Don’t give credence to the calendar fear and doubt want to show you. It’s incredibly heavy and never includes a page for “today.” Fear and doubt’s calendar always starts with yesterday or tomorrow.
You’ve got today, and today is all you need to start. The rest will come into view as you go.
3. It has to be perfect.
As I mentioned earlier, fear and doubt are schizophrenic. Their favorite thing to do is argue both sides of the coin so that you don’t have a side to stand on. They love to tell you, “It will never work,” and, “It has to be perfect.”
The first thought tells you that no part of your dream will succeed. The second thought tells you that every part of it must succeed. That doesn’t make even a little bit of sense, but you will hear both voices.
This one is pretty easy to defeat. The reality is that since the dawn of time there hasn’t been a single situation fear thought would work. If you ask fear if something is going to work, the answer will always be no.
Fear would have told the Wright Brothers not to fly. Fear would have told Rosa Parks to change seats. Fear would have told Steve Jobs that people hate touchscreens.
Don’t even ask it for advice. You know its answer. Just move on.
Those are the three most common messages, but you will hear others. I’ve asked thousands of people what their voices tell them, and they’ve had thousands of different answers.
I once asked a group of youth ministers what their voices told them. They told me things like:
“You work with kids; you’ll always be a kid; you’ll never be a real man.”
“You never went to seminary—who are you to teach kids?”
I asked a group of men what their voices told them, and a guy in the front row shouted out, “Wait until your father gets home.” He was in his mid-50s. He hadn’t lived at home for thirty years, and yet that fear still rang loudly in his head.
If you don’t deal with your voices, they don’t go away. They don’t naturally get smaller.
Doubt and fear are like muscles. Every time you believe a lie about yourself, it gets easier to believe it the next time. If you listen to your voices for the next ten years, they’ll only be stronger in ten years. They’ll get louder and closer to the surface. They’ll need less proof to pop up and get all mouthy.
Simply put, if you don’t kill your voices, they will kill you.
But we’re not going to let that happen. We’re not going to become emotional hoarders, storing up anger and bitterness before eventually moving to Florida and assuming that everyone is out to get us and our little dog.
We’re going to beat our voices by doing two things:
1. Documenting them.
Voices are invisible bullies, and they hate when you make them visible. The best way to do that is to dress them up with words. To write them down in a simple notebook. They can’t stand to be documented, because the minute they are, you can see how stupid they are. Lies hate the light of day.
Every time you take a step toward being awesome and a voice gets loud, write it down. Don’t ask, “Is this a voice?” before you do. Just write. Fast and furious and imperfectly. Scribble as many as you can down, and then refute them with
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