The Finishers Formula

The Finishers Formula

The Finishers Formula
What’s going on here?

Why do we live in the most privileged time in history, yet we can’t seem to decide what to do with our lives?

The more and more I look around, I see friends – really smart people – crippled by anxiety, too many choices, and no guidebook to make the right decisions.

How many people do you know that genuinely want to be successful? That are willing to put in the work (and they really mean it)? I know a LOT.

But each time we try, it’s like a yo-yo – we eagerly start, hit a roadblock, lose motivation, then beat ourselves up for not finishing.

Over and over and over again.

This isn’t about some new productivity tool. Looking for “motivational hacks” doesn’t help. Deep down inside, we know it’s about us – and the way we can’t seem to follow through.

How do we get out of the rut?

Why are we even in it?

Too many options – and
no way to choose

For the first time ever, we can decide what we want to do with our lives – supposedly.

We’re told that if we want to start a tech company, we can do it! Just like Mark Zuckerberg.

If we want to start a funny YouTube channel on how to apply makeup, we can do that – and make a pretty good living doing it.

And if we want to get a comfortable job and use our free time to follow our passions, we can, right?

Best of all, we can start over and try something new every few years!

So why is it so hard to decide what we want to do?

Because in a world of infinite choice, making a single decision becomes increasingly tough.

Our parents don’t get it. They look at us, confused, and furrow their brow. “You should be lucky to have all these job offers. When I was a kid…”

In fact, I vividly remember a family friend lecturing me on how I should work at Procter & Gamble. “You’ll retire with a million dollars in your bank account,” he bragged. A million? 40 years from now? It was one of the last things I wanted to think about.

And so we’re confronted with choice after choice…and who can really understand our situation?

It’s not just you. Check these comments out.

“I have never had a clear idea of what I want”

“I am constantly stressed about taking the wrong choices in life”

“…I’d get overwhelmed at all I’d have to do”

It’s like the first week in college. Everywhere you go, there are clubs, groups, new classes, events…it’s almost impossible to choose!

Now multiply that by 50 for real life: Which city should you live in? What job should you take? What about a side job? Where are we going out this Friday? When are you getting married?

It’s no surprise that we find it tough to follow through on things. Psychologists know that willpower is like a muscle that gets “used up” throughout the day.

And unlike any other time in history, we’re faced with more temptation than ever before. More ads. More text messages. More Facebook invites.

How many decisions do we make every day by 10am? And that’s just in a day. Forget about making major life decisions.

It’s easy for people to tell us to “buckle down” and focus. THEY didn’t grow up in a time where you could read about octopuses, political bias in the middle ages, and the origin of corn — all within 3 clicks of Wikipedia!

They didn’t have FOMO — a fear of missing out. How could they even understand?

And yet, we can’t just blame all these choices. All these options were supposed to let us choose whatever we wanted, like a buffet. But if we can’t follow through on all these options, what’s the point?

“I’m this close to giving
up on myself”

Try to imagine you woke up with a SHARP PAIN in your tooth. What would you do?

Obvious: Go to the dentist that day.

But what if you have a dull pain in your mouth? After a while, you get used to it.

And that’s exactly what happens with our anxiety:

“No matter how much work I put into something, it’ll never be good enough”

“I’ll do that tomorrow…”

“I really don’t know if I can ever change”

You know the worst part?

We’re the first person who gives up on ourselves!

After a lifetime of making promises we never follow up on, we stop trusting ourselves. We tell our friends, “Yeah, we should get together!”

But as we say it, we know we’re never going to do it.

We complain to our friends about money, or our weight. “I should really do that…”

But we know we won’t.

Ironically, our friends and family still believe in us. They nudge us, support us, help us with each new idea we try.

But after a while, you can see it in their eyes. You tell them the new thing you’re “thinking of” doing…and there’s the briefest roll of their eyes.

Oh, here we go again…another thing he’s gonna start (and never finish).

And soon, it’s not just about calling ourselves lazy. We actually become lazy.

These slips of the tongue become self-fulfilling prophecies. When I was 5’11” and 127lbs (yes, it’s true), I used to say, “I can’t gain weight like those big white guys.” How stupid does that sound?

Yet it kept me from actually changing myself for years an