Stay Away From Yourself

I don’t know where I heard that but I heard that quote recently. I wrote it down because it stuck out to me.  It’s such an uncomfortable truth.  That quote is uncomfortable because most of us already know that there’s a gap.

There seems to be this constant gap between what we’re doing and what we’re capable of doing.

Through experience, we categorize regret as a result of making the wrong decision.  Many times (and maybe even most of the time) that’s correct.  It is indeed a result of making the wrong decisions.

However, there’s another form of regret, which may actually be worse than the former and that is the regret of knowing you could have done more and simply didn’t.

Not because you weren’t talented enough.  Not because the opportunity never came.  Not because someone stopped you.  You just kept putting it off.  You just never actually took action.

Potential feels good because it gives us credit for something we haven’t done yet.

Yes, maybe you could, but eventually, could has to become did.  Potential has an expiration date.  There comes a point where what you were capable of matters a lot less than what you actually chose to do with it.

And that’s an uncomfortable reality.

We can spend years protecting the idea of what we could become without ever putting ourselves in a position to find out.  As long as we never fully try, the potential stays intact.

We can always tell ourselves the soothing lie:

I could have done it.

Actually trying removes that luxury.

The person you eventually become isn’t created by one massive decision.  They’re being built by the smaller decisions you’re making every day.

Every day is casting a vote.  And eventually those votes become a person.

That’s why the distance between who you are and who you could become rarely closes overnight.  It closes through ordinary days.

None of those things seem life-changing by themselves, but stacked together?  They can create an entirely different life.

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There’s an important distinction here.  Becoming who you could be doesn’t mean squeezing every ounce of productivity out of your life.  It doesn’t mean working 18-hour days, and grinding yourself down to a nub.  It doesn’t mean every hobby needs to become a business or every moment needs to generate a return.

That’s not potential.  That’s exhaustion.

The goal is simpler:

Stop repeatedly betraying the things you say matter to you.

Your actions don’t have to be dramatic.  They just have to begin matching your intentions.

You probably already have some idea of who you could become.  The question is whether your current life is moving you toward that person.

Not eventually.  Not once things calm down.  Not when you have more money, more confidence, more information or more time.  NOW!!!

Take an honest inventory.  Where is the biggest gap between the person you are and the person you know you could be?

Maybe it’s your career.  Your finances.  Your discipline.  Your health.  Your relationships.  Your business.  Just pick one, then make the gap a little smaller this week.

You don’t have to completely transform your life.  You just need evidence that you’re moving.  Direction is more important than speed.

The real nightmare isn’t failing while trying to become something greater.  It’s reaching the end, looking back and realizing the person you wanted to become was possible the entire time.

You just never gave them a chance.

Don’t wait until the person you are meets the person you could’ve been.

Start introducing yourself now.