Self Improvement

I grew up on military bases, immersed in the Navy SEAL community. My father served as one for more than 30 years. Outsiders often assume these soldiers walk around, looking like cauliflower-eared MMA fighters, carved from limestone like ancient athletes. In reality, you wouldn’t recognize most SEALs from the casual gymgoer.

The recruiting process selects for a number of things but above all, those who won’t quit. If a person is of reasonably sound mind and body, and willing to endure, trainers will mold them into a top .001% warrior. Regular grown men, and perhaps someday, women, find themselves living the dream, working among super-soldiers, unleashing their talent in ways they’d never imagined possible.

Their example is a good primer for the realm of “settling” as our society is plagued by the idea of taking what you can get, of choosing between the best of two luke-warm options. When you understand the human predisposition to settle, you are given the opportunity to bypass it, to get what you deserve, and achieve competencies you thought were out of reach.

How to Be Great at Anything

We have a running joke that the more guitar equipment someone owns, the worse they are at guitar. A friend has a similar theory about garage gear. The more new, clean equipment they have, the worse the mechanic.

Our theory has scientific ties to the Diderot Effect, where a person goes into a spiral of consumption that ends in feelings of disappointment. We love the idea of being good at something. We deck out our equipment. But then we contend with reality: the idea of being a rockstar is more fun than practicing scales for hours every day.

It’s demoralizing to be bad at something, particularly over long stretches of time. People forget that mastery isn’t a linear progression. For example, as a swimmer, I once had a goal to break 22-seconds in a 50-yard freestyle. For four months, I was trapped in this maddening dance with that barrier: 22.1, 22.05, 22.11, 22.09, 22.18. Then, one day, not feeling any different than the others, I swam a 21.7. My next race was 21.59, then a 21.39. And I kept dropping from there. I’d slid through a skill bottleneck. In the many places I’ve lacked ability, my near-foolish stubbornness has often paid off.

Don’t settle for the idea that you have no talent for most things. Schools do a great job labeling us with all sorts of test scores and suggestions of our respective value to society.

There’s a popular phrase by Tim Notke that always felt unfinished. It reads, “Hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard.” The phrase that should be added, “And talent doesn’t usually work hard.” Humans can be shockingly lazy, a collective ocean of lost potential.

People who develop the highest levels of mastery tend to measure progress by self-improvement rather than triumph over others. Good performers tend to practice what they already know, while the top performers focus on their weak points. They break up a given craft into tiny bits and isolate the sequencing.

For example, in art school, we didn’t sit and copy our teacher, stroke for stroke, like an over-simplified Bob Ross session. We spent months focusing just on perspective, three-dimension sketching, drawing shadows, tennis balls, and various simple objects. It is the mastery of individual mechanics that boosts skill.

You generally have much more potential than you give yourself credit for. You just haven’t thought about something and practiced it in the right way. Stay consistent and stubbornly glued to the idea of improvement. You’ll surprise yourself — and others.

The Curse of the Golden Handcuffs

My friend manages a call center for a large corporate technology company. Every conversation is another list of complaints. He had to pretend he wasn’t going to fire half of his employees in two months when he knew he’d be forced to. There are random budget cuts and impossible timelines. The company lurches in one direction after another. There are constant shouting sessions. Everyone is measured by a single stat, that pulses and updates constantly, that feels like a glowing target on their back.

When I asked why he doesn’t just quit, he said, “I’m making really good money and don’t think I can get it elsewhere.” It’s a familiar justification for renting a room in the 9th circle of hell. Modern jobs often feel like one of those crazy hypothetical questions, “How much money would it take for you to get shot in the leg.”

Anecdotal examples are matched by damning workforce stats. Only 30% of US employees claim to actually enjoy their jobs. The remaining 70% just endure, clocking in and out for various reasons. A Harvard study revealed that, on average, 90% of employees are willing to give up 23% of their lifetime earnings in exchange for a more meaningful job.

We will spend more than 2,000 hours a year working a standard full-time job. But many more off-hours are impacted by your ho-hum career. There is no reason to feel stuck, that you can’t live with less money, or aren’t capable of getting something better. The devil you know isn’t better than the devil you don’t. It’s still the devil. There’s nothing bleaker than hearing people openly complain about hating their job.

The Romantic Surrender is Happening

I’m a 37-year-old divorced man. I’ll tell you firsthand, there’s never full closure. There’s always a feeling of unfinished business, a loss on your record that can’t be erased, a wondering of how something so good could have ended so terribly.

Despite the pain, divorce offers a rare and visceral opportunity for retrospective learning. For example, we spent countless hours with other married couples, and if I’m being completely honest, what I saw made me deeply cynical about marriage. There were very few happy couples.

One couple had almost nothing in common. They were always in a slow-burning fight. It felt like they were jaded, low-pay actors, going through the motions for the sake of their kids. They got together for the same reason so many do: “I probably can’t do better, so I’ll just go with this one.”

This transactional thought process is pervasive and a proven phenomenon by science: people settle for bad relationships for fear of being single. The greater their fear, the more they’ll downgrade. Then, they’ll claw to make the already-bad relationship work, all before realizing one can only chuck water out of a sinking boat for so long. Fundamental incompatibilities have one true destination.

It’s so much harder to quit a mediocre relationship the deeper it goes. Don’t wake up one day and realize you wasted thirty years in a relationship. Wait for something that’s right. My rule, in romance and beyond, is “Right or not at all.”

Stop underestimating your worth and ability. Most barriers crumble with time, effort, and patience.

Recap for memory: 3 things you don’t have to settle for

1. The idea that you are average at most things. Whether it is basketweaving or programming, be willing to endure at the thing you crave proficiency in. Be stubbornly persistent. Therein lies mastery.
2. That a job has to be a game of chicken with your misery, measured by how much you are paid.
3. That a relationship has to be a compromise with fate and your other options. Wait for great.

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