The Big Lie That's Holding You Back

TL; DR: You are lying to yourself. Whenever you really want something, you tell a Big Lie in order to talk yourself out of the changes that will bring you what you want. Once you uncover and expose your Big Lie, and act as if you no longer believe it, anything is possible.

There’s a Big Lie that is stopping you from being, doing, and having what you want.

You've completely absorbed and internalized this lie.

It constantly sabotages your ability to enjoy your life. Let me tell you want I mean.

How the Big Lie Steals Your Life Force

Life is a series of adventures. I'm going to pound this into your head over and over again. I’ll be bringing it up in videos, blog posts, and tweets.

You’re wired for rich, engaging experiences that challenge you, hone your skills, and force you to learn and grow. Your own Hero’s Journey, if you will. But real life is a healthy stream of multiple  Hero’s Journeys.

The way you start an adventure is by picking something that you think you might want. Try it on for size.

Start going after it, start doing it, and you'll soon discover whether you're happy with that choice or not.

And that's how you learn and grow, gain self-confidence, build skills and wealth. It’s how you find friends and partners and lovers who match your energy.

Your Big Lie is the way you talk yourself out of these rich life experiences.

· You get stymied by minor obstacles and details

· You think of all the ways it could go wrong

· You worry about the problems more than you dream about the potential

· You think of the adventure as a fantasy instead of something you could really do

· You soothe yourself with comfortable distractions

The Big Lie usually wins, but you’re never 100% under its spell.

If you’re feeling unsatisfied with any aspect of your life, you’re feeling your natural resistance to the Big Lie that’s holding you back.

You might think the Big Lie has a strong hold over you, but it’s like a vampire. It shrivels in the sunlight.

Once you shed light on it, the Big Lie grows weak, and you have a chance to break free. All you have to do is recognize the Big Lie for what it is.

Let’s expose your Big Lie right now, step-by-step.

Tool of the Week: Expose the Big Lie

1. List everything you want to have, do, or become that you haven’t achieved yet.

2. For each of these desires, think of what would need to happen in order to achieve what you want.

3. Ask yourself, “For this to happen, what would I need to believe?”

4. What do you believe now that keeps you from believing what you need to believe? This belief is the Big Lie that’s constricting your spirit.

5. Think about what could happen if you let go of this belief, defied it, or even just tested it to see if it were really true.

6. Ask, “If I were free of this belief, what would I do first?”

7. Now go ahead and do that first thing. Embrace the adventure and do something that you’ve never done before.

And just by doing that, you can have a rewarding, adventurous life.

I’ll prove it to you.

How I Beat the Big Lie

For a long time, my big lie was, “I don't know what I want to do with my life.”

I felt like I had a hugely important mission to “do something with my life” and I didn’t know what it was.

If an opportunity didn’t fit my idea of my life’s mission, I felt like I had to reject it. And nothing fit my life’s mission, because I didn’t have a mission.

As a result, I turned away several once-in-a-lifetime opportunities for work, travel, friendship, and learning.

But I had a wake-up call shortly after graduating from college. In less than two weeks, I lost my job, my girlfriend, and my home.

As I told you last week, a hobo invited me to ride freight trains with him right around this time.

I had almost nothing else interesting going on in my life, so I acted as if riding freight trains was exactly what I wanted.

That journey changed me.

Over the next several years, I stopped telling myself the Big Lie. I still didn’t know what I wanted, but I was having all kinds of interesting adventures.

I traveled around the United States, often by hitchhiking, riding more freight trains, or on a bicycle.

Eventually I made my way to Italy and Greece.

Once I understood that I did know what I wanted, I started going after adventures more intentionally. And that’s when everything really took off.

I knew I wanted more personal freedom, so I paid off my student loans by doing various odd jobs, freelancing, and internships. I published my first stories and articles.

I leveraged the languages and other useful skills I had picked up on my travels. I made deliberate plans to explore exotic places on my bucket list.

When I knew I didn’t want to be single anymore, I met and married the woman of my dreams. And today we live on a small and beautiful farm, just 15 minutes from the redwoods and a short bike ride to the beach.

All of this was possible because I stopped telling myself that I didn’t know what I wanted. I chose the uncertainty of adventure and went after things I merely thought I wanted.

And you can, too.

Find the overpowering, dominating belief that’s keeping you from what you really want. Challenge it, test it, and defy it. You can begin to create anything you want.

All you need to do is stop lying to yourself. You know who you are.

That wraps it up for this week.

If you’re enjoying these rants, lessons, and tools, I would love to hear from you.

If you’re not, I would like to hear from you even more.

Reply to this email and tell me what you think, what you’d like to see in the future, or just to drop me a line about your cat.

I don’t always have the time to reply to your message, but I read every one of them.

Jacob