E5: The Battle With Self Doubt

Nov 7, 2017 39m 28s 10 insights
Stephen Bartlett reflects on the challenges of sharing personal details publicly. He delves into the importance of balancing short-term impatience with long-term patience, the value of real-world experience, and practical strategies for self-improvement in areas like self-discipline and time management.
Actionable Insights

1. Macro Patience, Micro Impatience

Cultivate short-term impatience for daily tasks to protect your time and get things done faster, but commit to long-term patience (expecting a decade) for achieving significant life goals, as true success is a gradual process.

2. Prioritize Real-World Experience

In your early years, prioritize gaining powerful, relevant real-world experience in high-information environments like startups over immediate financial gain or traditional degrees. This experience is more valuable for long-term success than any paycheck or diploma.

3. Self-Analyze Your Weaknesses

Regularly spend time self-analyzing to identify and address your core weaknesses, as fixing these can significantly improve your overall performance and prevent them from hindering your strengths.

4. Cultivate Self-Discipline

Actively work to improve your self-discipline, which means consistently doing what you intend to do, such as going to the gym or focusing on work. Aim for a high percentage of self-discipline to master yourself and become an elite performer.

5. Manage Time with Calendar Blocks

Shift from using a simple to-do list to blocking out specific times for tasks in your calendar. This method helps control your time, reduces procrastination, and ensures tasks are completed effectively.

6. Avoid Complacency

Guard against complacency by focusing all your mental energy and attention on today and the future, rather than reflecting on past achievements. This forward-looking mindset helps maintain focus and prevents the risk of losing everything.

7. Normalize Self-Doubt

Recognize that feeling like a fraud or experiencing self-doubt is a normal human experience, even for highly successful individuals. It’s often a positive sign that you are working outside your comfort zone and undertaking new challenges.

8. Build Confidence Through Discomfort

Intentionally throw yourself into uncomfortable situations to build confidence. Enduring the initial dread and persevering through poor performance in new activities is the only way to grow and become more capable.

9. Embrace Purposeful Struggle

View moments of pain, struggle, and hardship as defining growth opportunities, similar to how muscle fibers break to become stronger. These challenging experiences provide more valuable lessons and make you more capable for the future than easy times.

10. Entrepreneurs Benefit from Relationships

Consider the benefits of a supportive relationship as an entrepreneur, as a partner can provide emotional support, act as a soundboard, help you stay focused by reducing dating distractions, and create a necessary separation between work and home life.