How Did I Stop Living in My Head and Start Building a Life I Wanted

I believed that I can’t lose if I won’t try

Life gets ugly, quickly if you don’t act.

And reading is not acting. It took me years to realize.

I want you you understand this, as soon as possible, you get to get going. You’re not the type of person who takes things lightly. If anything, you tend to overthink, read everything and still do nothing.

I know you man.

The point I wanna make is I get you. I were in your shoes, and I managed to get out, and do the things, get what I wanted and feel the agency along the way.

What that means for you?

You can have an example, a proof it’s possible. You can understand faster where you are, why you’re still there and how to get out.

Someone did that for me. Unknowingly, but still gave me a chance of building a life out of what I had.

Because the life of inaction is a life of needless suffering. A suffering which feels unjust and undeserved.

The problem is two types of knowledge, and your focus on one

There are two types of knowledge:

1. Explicit → Know-What
2. Tacit → Know-How

The first one is your favourite. You love reading about psychology, how to get better and how to set goals.

It’s also what drove me into stagnation and self-admiration? I was so proud I read 70 books a year I couldn’t stand people who never read. But, you know what, my life wasn’t better than theirs. If anything, it was worse, because I was aware of the things I lack.

This kind of knowlede is empty.

It’s good to have, but overrated. It focus on the consuming part whereas real-life is also about creation-action part.

And for that part there is Tacit, know-how knowledge which you can call wisdom. It’s the kind of knowledge that’s earned. You can’t read it. You have to live it.

Here is my lifes analogy, so you can see practical difference.

After 5 years into my Android Dev career I knew about design-patterns. I could answer any question about names, description and usages. I knew what’s the chain of responsibilty, where to use it, but I never used it. Not on purpose.

I had the know-what knowledge. Empty, without wisdom. I couldn’t use it. I was book-wise.

And then, when I felt competence, I started discovering how to apply those patterns. I learned to spot them, and reason about them, based on examples.

So, I became street-wise.

It’s good to read, to learn from books, articles and videos, but to make that knowledge useful you have to use it. You have to act it out.

But you have reasons not to. And I know them.

How the problem shows in my life?

Instead of doing everything to get what I wanted, I waited for life to get better on it’s own.

• I waited for people to notice my suffering.
• I waited for government to decrease taxes.
• I waited for women to notice, how amazing I’m.
• I waited for people to ready my work.
• I waited for salvation.

But nothing happened.

What a surprise. Without taking action my life stayed the same. And believe me, it wasn’t pretty for me. Not because my circumstances were hard. I had everything, health, looks, money to live and eat well, time to play games and to meet with friends.

No, the problem was in my mind.

I built a prison for myself. In which I developed the perpsective on things that only focused on what’s missing, on what’s wrong, never seeing what’s right. So, no matter what I had, I wanted something else. Of course without taking action to get it.

The prison was built based on my beliefs.

I believed that I had to do things perfectly or not at all. I believed that people waited for my failure.

But the critical belief was that I can’t fail if I won’t try.

That one kept me going in circles about why I can’t get what I wanted. In all it’s simplicity it stopped me from trying. Because I was scared shitless of failing. Of being ridicouled.

Why, you might ask?

Well, for me it was mostly my parents, who are risk averse which translates to avoiding it at all cost. The easiest way to avoid risk is not changing anything. Somehow I believed that, and they still believe it.

The result in life is decision-paralysis.

You simple can’t avoid risks. Every decision is risky. Everything you do has a downside and upside. The reality is you can only make trade-offs. But you have to be ready for them, at least by accepting them.

How inaction causes anxiety

The low in my life was marked with anxiety.

I felt it almost every second of my being. No matter if I was with a friend, playing games or watching TV. The only brief moment of me not being aware of it were when I was high.

High on drugs, alcohol or entertainment.

The issue was the effects lasted for hours, before they wear off. And it became harder and harder to get them next time. As a side-effect of trying I also made time in-between harder to bear, due to hangovers, lack of focus and additional stress coming from destroying my body.

So, no wonder I felt lonely and worhtless.

I did nothing of value, nothing of substance. I only read about doing those things. And it was something, but not enough to change my life.

Do you know the best part?

At the same time I managed to feel entitled to a better life. Like I deserved to get more. I was convinced that’s unfair how I feel.

Yup.

And that’s how anxiety creeps in when you never act. You simply store all those things you should do in your brain, never taking care of them. You silence the anxiety with the help of alcohol and drugs, but it get’s through sometimes, and always while you’re sober.

That brings more anxiety.

You see it doesn’t work as well as it did before. And you have no idea what to do with it. And if you do have an idea, you convince yourself it’s not worth the risk. Because you can fail, so why bother trying? You focus on what people would think about your failure, instead of what you could get out the succeess.

The real question is, can you get out?

Is there salvation?

There was a way out for me.

And what’s outside the prison I built stuns me every now and then. Even after 6 years I catch myself thinking I’m finally free. And I sometimes dream about drinking and wasting time again, just to wake up sober, relieved it was a dream.

The main difference is the feeling of agency.

I’m still afraid of failure, I still prefer to avoid risks. But I no longer decide to never act. This is enough to achieve some of my goals.

From there there are countless opportunities.

I used to be awful with people. Stressed, forgetting names (I still do), no talking much. In general, I had troubles making connections. Or let say I could only make them while being drunk or high.

And I thought that how I was, no way to change.

But understanding goals allowed me to set one: “I want to get better with people”. And the work that followed helped me become more open and less focused on how I look.

I’m not saying that I can magically achieve anything. But I can achieve something, if I put my mind to it.

Same happened to me with starting a family. I made it my goal, and I slowly worked out the sharp edges of my character to find a women I can team up with to live hapilly in this world. And it’s just the start.

So, what I’m saying is that on this side of the fence, you can get what you want.

You don’t have to stay as you are. You don’t have to dwell on the past and suffer in your mind. You don’t have to run away from action, because it scares you.

Simple change. Great results.

4 Step freedom framework

My “framework” is straight.

It has 4 steps and one secret ingredient. It works in a counter-intuitive way. By substracting things I focus on, I become more free than ever.

Here it is:

1. Set goals.
2. Split goals into daily actions
3. Use your goals to substract distractions
4. Review

And the secret ingredient is responsibility.

Without it, you can set your goals, and never move a finger. So you’d end up in the “not acting” state, again. And that I don’t recommend.

To make it clear I want to break down what responsibilty means for me. And how do I take it.

I’ll list behaviors that I treat as “taking responsibility”:

1. I apologize when I made a mistake
2. I apologize when I hurst someone and I didn’t want to
3. I do what I said I’d do
   1. so, when I set a goal, I take action to achieve it
4. When I do something I do it according to MY standard
   1. or if the required standard is higher than mine → I raise my standards
5. If I fail to get what I want, I look for ways of doing more or doing better
6. When someone praises me I thank them, instead of dissming them

As you see, simple. Because there is no need for complex solutions for simple problems.

Having goals helps, because they act as a filter.

There are infinite amount of things to get, goals to achieve, problems to solve. But you only have one life, and it’s quite finite. Because of this fact, you need to filter reality.

Goals do that well.

What else can I say?

Develop bias for action

The life you have is yours to improve.

If salvation comes, it means you saved yourself. So, you might as well use what you got from this article. And if anything resonated with you, the key point is simple:

develop bias for action

Surely, it’s not the one-for-everything advice. I think none ever is. But it is the advice for you. Some might need a different one, maybe they act too soon, speak before they think etc.

But not you.

You do all the thinking, all the reading, but little acting. And acting is all the fun. It’s also a remedy for the anxiety you feel. Wouldn’t it be nice to get rid most of it?

Amazing, so do what you postponed, because of fear of failure, risk or being laughed at.

How I know it works? I was there, and now I’m here. Where life is good, and it feels good for me.

Care to join?