What Are You Lying To Yourself About?

What’s something you lied to yourself about recently?

It’s a difficult and revealing question. When I answered it about a month ago this is what I wrote:

I’m lying to myself about actually trying to publish my children’s story. This is something I said I wanted, but wasn’t committed to. I wasn’t taking the action to move the project forward…and that was disappointing.

I have the feeling that I’m not the only one who has felt this. We say we want to:

• make a personal change (lose weight, spend more time with friends),
• lead a big, important project at work or with a student club,
• or achieve some other aspiration

…and then we never do. Not because we don’t have the personal capabilities or the external resources or the connections, but because we don’t commit. We don’t take the necessary action.

When we realize that we’ve lied to ourselves like this, it can be disheartening. We can fall into a negative spiral believing that we will never reach that vision we thought we would.

Or we can do the opposite. We can double down on that change/project/aspiration we’ve been avoiding tackling.

That’s what I’m doing right now. The theme for August is Climbing.

It’s about doing one thing everyday to make progress towards my two most important projects: publishing the children’s story and Project Passion.

At the beginning of everyday, I have to ask myself: “What’s the smallest thing I can do today to move the needle on this project?”

Then at the end of the day, I have to ask myself: “Did I do that thing? Did today matter?”

The answer isn’t always “yes”, and that’s okay…it just means I have to get back at it and make it up the next day.

Right now, I imagine I’m on the Michigan football team. August is the month these college football teams work harder and longer. They’re practicing, running the plays, lifting, watching film, and doing everything they can to prepare for the gamedays in September and October.

I’m on that same grind, except I don’t have a formal coach or teammates to hold me accountable. I just have you and anyone else who reads this.

Yes, the process can be painful and exhausting, but it’s also where all the joy and growth comes from — climbing up the mountain. I love the building of a project, trying different combinations of resources, figuring out what doesn’t work, and seeing it come together.