And They Lived Happily Ever After

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

One thing for you to think about

Good relationships get better with work. Bad relationships need constant work just to stay the same.

The trick is knowing which kind of relationship you’re working on.

Two things for you to ask yourself

What kind of work are you doing on your relationship? Is it worth it?

One thing for you to try this week

Take a good relationship you have—partner, parent, child, friend, colleague, etc.—and put work into it this week. Let me know what happens.

Last week’s breakthroughs

In last week’s newsletter, I asked you to pick an emotion that’s been troubling you and see if you can find a better reaction to it.

Joan decided to no longer take her emotions as facts:

This week’s challenge couldn’t have come at a better time.

I recently started dating someone, and to be honest; it’s been a full-on roller coaster of emotions. From the beginning, it has felt like I have been running a monitoring, analysis, and reporting project, with my emotions as the metrics.

He gets a call from a girl—I don’t ask questions. Instead, I let my emotions run the show. I immediately feel suspicious, tell myself he must be cheating and decide the relationship isn’t healthy. My feelings quickly become ‘facts,’ and I label him as the problem.

But here’s the truth: it’s hard to be in a new relationship without expecting failure or disappointment when that’s been my norm in the past. I have been so used to emotional turbulence that I instinctively assume the worst, without stepping back to challenge my assumptions.

This week, I will try something new. I am choosing to check in with my emotions and remind myself: just because I feel this way doesn’t mean it’s the truth. I am learning not to treat my emotional reactions as facts, but as signals—signals that I need to pause, reflect, and maybe heal.

Thank you for the timely nudge.

Lilley is finding a better reaction to her anxiety:

I think an emotion that I can deal with better is anxiety. I have recently been retrenched from my job, and am now job hunting while trying to complete my masters dissertation, and I’ve been trying to remain optimistic. While I’ve done significantly better on that front than I did last time this happened to me, I’ve sometimes been getting out of bed with a knot in my stomach, and then being anxious about why I’m feeling anxious when this break in my career actually came at a good time, and despite the fact that I’ve been very productive with my masters and proactive with job hunting since my last workday.

This week’s topic was a good reminder that the anxiety I’ve been feeling is not necessarily bad, so there’s no use in piling meta-anxiety on top of the anxiety. Feeling anxious during a time of change is absolutely normal, so instead of worrying about why I’m anxious, texting my partner about it, and wasting time almost speaking it into existence, I can just acknowledge it with self-compassion, then go on with my day. This isn’t to say I think I should be suppressing my emotions and dealing with the anxiety alone, but I have noticed that, when I do text my partner about how anxious I am, it takes me a lot longer to get out of the anxiety spiral, almost as if making it a big deal actually made it a big deal!

Over in my online community Momentum, we spent June digging into our emotions to solve procrastination. Here’s one of our earliest members, Jennifer, with her breakthrough:

I was unaware of how my emotions and past experiences have caused my procrastination behaviors. Going through this month’s journaling exercises and reading others’ posts on the daily forum told me that I’m not alone, and I’m just a normal human. I’ve been able to identify and process my feelings surrounding procrastination. I’ve been able to let go of guilt. It’s OK if I didn’t get everything done. I’m learning to be realistic with what I can do in one day. I don’t feel as if I’m in a panic or playing whack-a-mole with my to-do list anymore.

The MVA [Minimum Viable Action] was the tool I went to most often. It really provided the kickstart to make progress on things that I deem important. This morning I set out the tools I needed to make muffins for a gathering this afternoon. Everything’s ready to go, so after my journaling and coffee, I can immediately start baking. I don’t have to wait till the last minute and then panic and rush through the task.

One last thing—I am deeply grateful to all the members who have posted in this space this month. Your sharing and honesty have helped me face my procrastination, and encouraged me to be kind to myself. I’ve loved hearing about the breakthroughs you all are having. It’s truly inspiring. It makes me want to get up and get going with my projects. It’s amazing to me what you all have done in your lives over the last month. Astounding!

If you want to join Jennifer and 1,500 other thoughtful humans committed to one action a day to build the momentum we all need to change our lives, you can learn more here. So far, we’ve worked on our values, tackled procrastination—and July is all about emotions.

I hope to see you there.

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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