You Already Have What You Wanted

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

One thing for you to think about

Scarcity dictates what’s meaningful.

When you are alone, a relationship feels meaningful.
When you’re in a relationship, time to yourself feels meaningful.

When you are overworked, time off feels meaningful.
When you have plenty of downtime, work feels meaningful.

The scarcity never gets solved, it simply changes form.

Three things for you to ask yourself

What feels scarce to you now? What doesn’t? How does that dictate what feels meaningful to you right now?

One thing for you to try this week

Pick one thing you have right now that you once wanted badly. Treat it like it could disappear tomorrow. Reply and let me know how that changes things.

Last week’s breakthroughs

In last week’s newsletter, I asked you to start the thing you’ve been preparing for too long.

This was the nudge our first reader needed:

This week I pushed through a new layer in the seemingly never-ending rabbit hole that is my chronic avoidance, perfectionism and procrastination! The simple but difficult ‘get started’ prompt was the little nudge I needed to finally share the video game inspired RPG-style living dashboard app I have been obsessively ‘vibe coding’ with a couple of friends to test. This email helped me realize that building the thing and improving it came naturally to me, that was the fun stuff. But being vulnerable and actually sharing it to see if anyone else might find it useful was way harder.

Turns out my friends weren’t too interested in my app but that’s not the point—I was vulnerable and the world didn’t end. Plus I can even track this as a quest completed and achievement unlocked in the app! I’m hopeful that ‘character-sheet’ might eventually find its niche now that I’ve got over the barrier of getting the thing open sourced and out the door.

After 24 years, Tim finally began:

So basically I have been wanting to act since I was two. And although my parents were always supportive of my dream, I decided to go the easy way and spend 40K on a business degree, which was, how do I say, less than useless considering I learned more in three books about funnels that cost me $60. Instead I got sucked into the sunk cost fallacy (which by the way I learned in said overpriced degree) and didn’t drop out, and spent the rest of that money on courses from people in the industry. I continued on because that is what society declared was ‘right.’ But I decided, since I’ve moved halfway across the world, that I am going all in on acting, even though I have no formal training. Yes, this may fail dramatically and yes the likelihood of making it in this industry is less than 5%. But hey, this is my canvas and I am practicing the ‘art of not giving a F$%k.’ My preparation for this is 24 years in the making and if I fail, at least I know it didn’t work out because I gave it a shot.

Thank you for your advice. I have started acting classes two times a week, signed up to an online program and am trying to read 2-3 plays each week and am going to audition for Julliard and other world renowned schools.

Finally, Julie wasn’t ready, but she showed up anyways:

I’ve been wanting to write a book for oh 25 years. I’ve started and stopped so many times. I got sober a few years ago and as I’m working through my recovery the urge to write that book came roaring back. But being someone who has to have a plan, I had to do all the research on how to write a book and get it published (forget that I haven’t written a chapter yet) and how to organize said book into chapters and a cohesive message.

Needless to say I was getting nowhere fast. So I just started writing whenever the thoughts came into my mind. Sometimes that’s when I wake up in the middle of the night. Sometimes it’s while I’m getting ready in the morning. Even now I wanted to respond to this email but I thought I had to wait until I was in a comfortable spot with a good pen and notebook.

But before I even got up from breakfast I took out my phone and started writing this. If I’m being honest I’m a little nervous about this being read because maybe my writing isn’t stellar or maybe what I’m saying isn’t important. But I’m reminding myself that I’m doing this because I feel the need to and if no one ever reads my words at least I’ll have done what I’ve been drawn to for so many years. Even as I’m about to hit send on this email I feel lighter and have a smile on my face. That’s pretty amazing.

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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