Heyooo! It’s your pal Steve.
I want to try an experiment with this newsletter. Interested?
Each Monday, I’m going to send a thought directly from my weird brain to yours.
I promise it will be something that sticks with you, helps you level up, and hopefully makes you feel less alone in what you’re struggling with. We’re all dumpster fires, and we’re all doing our best.
This week’s thought is inspired by a major new project I’m working on, which I can tell you about early next year. I also recently had minor surgery (don’t worry, all good), and I had to do a few months of physical therapy for quad tendonitis (super fun).
This means I haven’t picked up a barbell much over the past two months.
At the same time, I’ve been playing a LOT of Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom.
And I don’t feel bad about this. At all. Here’s why:
What Would You Like to Suck at?
I bet you’re trying to eat better, exercise more often, and get more sleep.
You’re also trying to be a good partner, a good employee, a better parent, and spend more time with friends. You also have hobbies and are trying to keep your sanity as the world burns down around us.
And SHOCKER: you’re also feeling burned out and overwhelmed and stretched too thin.
Which this gif perfectly illustrates.
Well, I have great news:
You can’t do all the things. Like, it’s actually impossible. There is not enough time in the day.
The greatest trick the internet ever pulled was convincing us that we could do it all and have it all if we were just more optimized and efficient:
- “One weird trick” to be more productive.
- A new workout plan or optimized diet that will solve all our problems.
- YouTube videos on how to get more and more done in less and less time.
The problem, of course, is that we have jobs and families and hobbies and then our kids get sick and life happens. It doesn’t matter how well we plan or how amazing our time-schedule-productivity strategy is. Life always gets in the way, because that’s just what life does.
This means we HAVE to suck at something. Something has to give. Life is one big tradeoff after another.
Introducing…”Strategic Underachievement!”
This is a term I discovered in Oliver Burkeman’s Four Thousand Weeks:
You’ll inevitably end up underachieving at something, simply because your time and energy are finite. But the great benefit of strategic underachievement—that is, nominating in advance whole areas of life in which you won’t expect excellence of yourself—is that you focus that time and energy more effectively.
Here’s how it works: when you’re trying to change some part of your life, build a new habit, or start a new workout routine, it helps to decide in advance which parts of life you’re comfortable sucking at for a while.
For example:
- Building a new workout routine? It’s okay letting the house get messy.
- Learning how to batch cook and make better food choices? Be content with inconsistent workouts.
- Developing a new morning routine? Give yourself permission to cut out TV for a few weeks.
Here’s why it works: rather than juggling all the things and making no progress, we make actual progress on a few focused tasks instead. When we decide what areas of life to suck at (temporarily), we don’t feel bad about sucking at those things when they fall by the wayside!
Proactive planning trumps reactive panic.
We can’t do it all.
We never could.
We never will be able to.
It’s time to decide what tradeoffs we’re willing to make in order to achieve actual progress! This can change based on what’s happening in your life, or what goal you’re working on, and can be thought of as an experiment in doing things differently.
Once you’ve identified the parts of your life that are non-negotiable (being a good spouse, parent, not getting fired, etc), where else can you suck temporarily while you get your act together?
-Steve
