Do This and You’ll Fail at Life

137 people had breakthroughs this week. Will the next one be you?

Two things for you to think about

If you’re not failing, you’re not learning. If you’re not learning, you’re not growing. If you’re not growing, you’re not living.

Living without failing is failing to live.

Improving your life is a matter of experiencing desirable failures.

Two things for you to ask yourself

What would you do with your life if you had zero risk of failure? In what ways have you short-changed yourself by avoiding failure in your life?

One thing for you to try this week

Go fail. Spectacularly, preferably. But any failure will do. Then let me know how it went.

New This Week

The Philosophy Tier List: Ranking the World’s Wisdom – Have you ever wondered which life philosophies are the best? Have you ever wanted a definitive tier ranking of them? Well you’re in luck because that’s exactly what I did for this latest YouTube video. Buddhism, Hedonism, Stoicism, Skepticism, Freudianism, Pastafarianism, and more… How do they compare? Check it out.

5 Ways to Hack Your Mind for Success – The way you think about the world and your place in it can have a huge impact on your life. And yet, when it comes to evaluating the way we think, we’re rarely able to smell our own bullshit. In last week’s podcast episode, Drew and I break down five different mindsets you can adopt to live a more examined, successful life, which will require you to reject many of the beliefs you’ve been force fed your entire life. Let’s do it.

Last week’s breakthroughs

In last week’s newsletter, I asked you to act on something without being certain of the result.

Mathieson’s action literally saved a life:

I have been working for five years as a physio. Emergencies don’t really happen because of our controlled environment to keep people safe. But today when the first client to have a medical episode under my supervision had an unconscious collapse in the gym it didn’t give me a chance to be certain of my actions, I just had to act. It could have been the difference between them living or dying.

I thought that I would be struck down with feelings after the incident. However, I’ve been feeling basically okay, reflective of what I could have done better, sure, but I did everything I needed to. All the first aid training came back to me and the assistance from the staff turned what could have been a terrible situation into a reasonably relaxed Monday afternoon.

I didn’t have any certainty for today’s outcome but it wasn’t the time to be certain. It was the time to act.

Mark (not me) is biting the bullet:

I moved into a new apartment five months ago and have not been happy there, primarily due to financial difficulties.

After stalling for a month and lying to myself that I couldn’t move again so soon because it would upset everyone around me and ignoring what my gut was telling me, I told building management that I am moving out next month. No one was upset, there was no disaster as I expected and I feel so relieved and grateful that I was able to get past my mental block and see in hindsight that our brains are trying to protect us from what we label as a good or bad situation.

And Constantine realized the perfect moment doesn’t exist:

Your newsletter this week really hit home. I’m a guy who’s always trying to be Mr. Perfect and wants to be 100% certain before taking action.

I’m engaged to a beautiful woman outside of my cultural and racial background. This decision has generated a lot of backlash from my traditional family who insist that we’re too different and it won’t work out. The negative comments I’ve received have greatly affected me because I was suddenly witnessing a side of my beloved family that I never thought existed…

Nevertheless, this whole experience has been a blessing in disguise. It has forced me and my partner to have some very difficult conversations and that has strengthened our bond. It made me realize that my people-pleasing tendencies are to the detriment of my own happiness and my relationship. Would I pause my life, delay my marriage until I get my family’s approval? What if that day never comes?

In conclusion, my advice to myself is this: There will never be a perfect time for the big decisions in life; you just have to prepare the best way you can, trust yourself and God (or the universe), and make a conscious decision to move forward.

As always, send your breakthroughs by simply replying to this email. Let me know if you’d prefer to remain anonymous.

Until next week,

Mark Manson

#1 New York Times Bestselling Author
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