It's all your Fault

Well, it is your fault. It's all your fault. There is no advice anyone can give you that will poof! you into the confident, anxiety-free, motivated person you want to be.

Self-improvement is excruciatingly hard, gradual, painstaking, time-consuming,. Even having the most intense, mind-shattering epiphany isn't going to be enough to make you into the person you want to be. It can show you the path, give you the motivation to push you onto it, and empower you with the tools for self-actualization. But nothing can replace hard work, as corny as it might sound to you.

Michael Jordan was cut from his basketball team, Steve Jobs was fired from the company he created, and Oprah was terminated from her job as an anchor. You think they got where they are just because they were born tough and determined? No, they were just as mentally fragile as us. Only through grit and more grit did they succeed.

It takes effort, a whole lot of it. It's never easy and at times working on yourself will feel pointless or arbitrary and the negativity will embrace you constantly like a sirens begging you to just relax and go back to the soothing familiarity of your distractions. No advice is going to fix that. It's up to you and you only to craft yourself into the person you want to be. It's obvious that you know what you have to do, but that you're afraid to bite the bullet. Too bad.

Stare your demons in the face and stand your ground. You'll see the results you want if you work hard, really hard. Unfortunately, there is no way around that. You won't see results for a while, but if you persist and you can look deep into the abyss within and know you gave life every shred of dedication you have I promise you'll be the person you envision yourself as.

Research shows that it takes ~28 days of repeating a behavior until it becomes ingrained and naturally routine. That's not to say self-improvement ever gets easy, but it's something to keep in mind.

Don't ask yourself if you're normal, ask yourself if you're great because that's what you want to be. You want to be happy and fulfilled. Normal people are neither. You're only hurting yourself by benchmarking yourself to other people, but if it gives you motivation remember that there have been plenty of people far less fortunate than you who pushed through the angst--people who've been down to the depths of human despair and clawed back inch by inch... because in the end, persevering is all we can do.

The man with the highest IQ in the world is a bouncer and spends his time writing a never-quite-finished metaphysical book on his Theory of Everything--I pity him! What have his brains accomplished him?

Doing can be more important than thinking, especially in our personal lives. This is especially hard for most of us to realize because we love to be detached, impartial observers... but living life (if you stick to your aspirations) is so much better than idly observing it.

Imagining alternate or possible future universes where you don't have anxiety and are rich and love life will never do anything for you. None of those fantasies will ever put money in your pocket or happiness into your heart. Breaking out of fantasy is tough because it's assuring and comforting, but it's a false, deceiving opium that robs you of the desire to materialize your goals. Real life sucks and just wanting something badly is never enough. Not only do you have to dedicate yourself entirely to realizing your goals and visions, you have to hold that note steady, a feat infinitely easier said than done.

What are you waiting for?