Want to know a dirty secret of self-improvement? You already know what you need to do. Reading books and going to seminars is expensive procrastination. We all know what we need to do, but it’s hard and scary.

I’m writing this partially as a reminder to myself, and partially as a wake-up call to you. I don’t like it either. Often this means ending a relationship that’s dragging, trying something we don’t know how to do, or confronting something we’ve been putting off. It’s not fun. It’s not glamorous and there’s a thousand reasons you can think of that you should put it off.

The good news is that if you don’t do it today, you can try again tomorrow. The bad news is, this isn’t going away until you do it. This is the brutal irony of life. The hardest lessons only get more painful with delay. Life will give you 1 trillion chances to learn it, but you can bet that opportunity 100,000 is more painful than opportunity 99,999. Want to keep waiting?

So let’s unpack this. I’m enjoying watching you squirm. How much better would your life be if this one issue was resolved? The one decision or task you fear most? How much stress would be off your shoulders? How much uncertainty would be resolved? Even if it went poorly, how much better would you feel if it was simply DONE? You could start moving on. You could pick up the pieces after the explosion. You could build something else.

I’m not saying this is painless. Absolutely not. It is simple, though. The most important things in life are mostly simple. They are hard things, uncomfortable things, scary things, which we mostly know how to do. We don’t know how the explosion will play out, but we know how to light the fuse.

So now that I’ve characterized your biggest fear as an explosion, do you feel motivated yet? No? That’s weird. Anyway it’s not like this is going to get better if you put it off. You’ve already put it off for so long. I just need you to fix your compass. Take out your journal. Write down the biggest thing causing you stress, anxiety, fear, worry, panic, distress. Do the same thing for a week. Did you write down the same thing more than twice? Well, it sounds like that thing is stealing a lot of life from you. It sounds like it’s making you miserable over and over again. It sounds like there’s one thing which is literally robbing you of time you could be enjoying life you’ll never get back. Let’s fix that.

This is the part where I give you a permission slip. It says you don’t have to feel ready. You don’t have to feel prepared. You don’t have to know how it will end, what they’ll say, you don’t have to know the right answer or the best phrasing. You don’t have to do this well. You just have to do it. 

We never feel ready to do the things that really matter. They are things you never feel 100% ready for. You never really have control. They are things where all the possible outcomes suck. Back in my worst breakups I had to choose between A) Toxic relationship and B) Painful breakup. The reason you’re freezing now is because you don’t like any of your options. You feel like the right answer should be a happy one. But that’s now how life works. Many of our most important decisions are between two scary or unpleasant options. But it’s okay. Usually, there’s one option that’s only shitty for a little while but gets better in the end. That’s the one you want. 

I’m not saying this will feel good. I’m not saying that I can make it go well for you. I’m just saying you’ll feel better when it’s over. You already know what you need to do. You already know how important this is. It’s okay that it’s scary. We don’t know how this will go, but it’s gotta be better than where we are now.

“What you fear most is what you most need to do”