Are You Avoiding Greatness?

I've read a book or two in my life about psychology...

Good psychology places ownership on the individual for their thoughts, their actions, how they live.

Bad psychology provides excuses, a way out, reasons for why we aren't who we can be.

Good psychology, in that sense, is much like good philosophy. It's rooted in truth, in power of the individual to withstand and overcome anything; even in the worst, most catastrophic situation, the strong man survives, learns, and even grows.

In this sense, life is very simple, much simpler than we'd like it to be.

The reality is, there are no excuses or reasons, there is just facts.

Of all of the things that hold us back in life, procrastination and avoidance is up there at the top of the list.

We choose ease over what's good and right, what's true.

We put off what ought to be done for something with a little less resistance.

Author, Steven Pressfield (not a psychologist) talks about this Resistance a fair bit in his book the War of Art (great read). He also writes about ambition, not being something negative, but something true, when he writes:

Ambition, I have come to believe, is the most primal and sacred fundament of our being. To feel ambition and to act upon it is to embrace the unique calling of our souls. Not to act upon that ambition is to turn our backs on ourselves and on the reason for our existence.

We can have false ambitions, incorrect goals, but the ones that really tug at our souls, these are the ones asking us to exist on a higher plane, to be who we can be.

And the Resistance, the desire to avoid the tasks that pursue these ambitions, is the strongest in these cases.

No matter the outcome, our potential is greatness. It's the greatest version of the men we can be in every game in life. Forget about modern measuring sticks. The man who makes billions may not have lived his potential, he may have avoiding the tugging at his soul, too.

What's tugging at your soul?

Are you wanting to get in shape, but you avoid the struggle required to do so?

Have you been thinking about writing a book or starting a business, talking about it for years without ever taking the leap and writing the first sentence or starting the corporation or buying the domain name?

The truth is, this Resistance IS our North Star, it's what we ought to point our actions towards, not avoid.

What you avoid in life, ends up controlling you.

It's an albatross. It weighs you down with regret, until finally the regret becomes you.

Of course, this action, it's risk, it's effort that may not payoff, there's uncertainty in its very nature. The Resistance makes sense, you're protecting yourself from anguish, struggle, even pain and failure.

Which is why so many never take the leap, never put in the hours, never persist.

But, this is life.

Life is risk.

We risk failure, or we risk regret.

So, are you avoiding greatness? Answer, please. 

How are you avoiding it?

What games in life - health, wealth, family, adventure etc... - are you not levelling up in?

The older I get, the faster time goes. The more urgency I feel to be at my best, and I'm sure you're the same.

Time is undefeated, so use it.

Act now. Don't allow the things you avoid to control you. Don't accept regret as your companion. 

Theodore Roosevelt said it best...

The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.

Dare greatly.

Know victory, and know defeat.

Do not end as a cold and timid soul who never ventures into the great unknown, who never risks what he has for what he can have.

Get stronger. Get better. Be greater.

Be Legendary,

Chad Howse