3 Ways to Get Out of Your Head (and Into Your Life)
Missed last week? — Catch up on the archive here
Hey Reader,
You’re not stuck because you don’t know enough. You’re stuck because you’re still in your head.
Here are three ways to stop planning your life and start living it.
1: Stop planning escape routes
We all have this fantasy running in the back of our minds. It’s usually subconscious, and goes something like this:
“If I can just do enough ____________, I can permanently avoid ____________.”
Sound familiar?
- “If I just level up enough, I’ll never have to deal with insecurity, fear, or rejection again.”
- “If I can just make enough money, I’ll never worry about finances.”
- “If I can just become attractive enough, I’ll never have anyone reject me.”
This fantasy is literally baked into society: Get educated for 20 years, grind for 40, then coast for the final 20. Retire to the beach. Espresso martinis. Golf every day.
But let’s get real for a second:
- You’ll never get so fit that you never have to work out again.
- You’ll never find love so pure that the relationship doesn’t require effort, communication, and growth.
- You’ll never find the completely “passive income” business that everyone’s trying to convince you exists.
Because there’s this law of nature everybody leaves out: Entropy.
It comes from thermodynamics and says: everything moves from order to disorder unless energy is applied to maintain it.
In other words: everything turns to sh*t once we stop putting effort in.
It’s like those rusty cars you see on the side of the highway.
That’s 50 years of “I don’t need to maintain this anymore.” But if you put some effort into maintaining the car, it’s still a classic.
Relationships work the same way. You start with effort, passion, deep conversations.
Then five years later, it’s just “Babe, what do you want off Uber Eats?” and “What should we watch on Netflix?”
So once I ditched this fantasy that I could somehow earn my way out of life being hard or requiring effort… that’s liberating.
Once you accept that things are always going to be kind of difficult, resistance just… disappears.
There’s no point fighting it anymore.
The only thing left is to put your head down and do the work.
Or as the SEALs say: “embrace the suck.”
Because the suck isn’t going anywhere.
2: Stop studying the game and start playing it
Here’s another trick your mind plays on you:
Thinking that the more you prepare, the better your results.
That couldn’t be further from the truth.
It’s like the time I signed up for improv classes. Your natural instinct is to pre-plan every joke, every response. You know, so you don’t look like a complete idiot in front of 20 strangers. But when you do that, you sound stiff and inauthentic.
The magic happens when you just… let go. Trust the process.
Accept that you might bomb spectacularly.
And I get it, I’m the person who needs this advice at times too. But now I see this everywhere, and it drives me insane.
I’ve literally spoken to people who have been stuck ‘picking their niche’ for their YouTube channel for three years. They’ve posted five videos. FIVE.
Ironically, those are the same people who leave comments like “dude, your thumbnails could be better” and “you really should edit your videos like so and so.”
They’re so stuck on what’s correct in theory they missed what the entire plot is on youtube… posting videos!
It gets me fired up because this is the exact trap I was stuck in for years.
It makes me genuinely sad thinking about my old self, paralyzed by preparation, wondering how much further ahead I could have been if I’d just focused on doing more instead of learning more.
Here’s the brutal truth:
- You can’t learn to surf from a textbook.
- You can’t get jacked by finding the perfect program.
- You can’t study business and magically money shows up in your account.
You have to lift the damn weights.
In every area.
My rule: Every 1 hour of implementation beats 10 hours of planning.
Whenever you’re stuck, lost, or confused… make it simple: Action. Action. Action.
3. Stop waiting for fun
Now let’s talk about one question that instantly makes your life fun again:
“When was the last time you did something for the first time?”
When I was in a funk a couple years back, someone asked me that and I realized my life had gotten so boring.
Like, embarrassingly boring. Youtube, coaching, gym, sleep, repeat. I was a productivity bot.
So here’s what I want you to do right now:
“What would I learn if I could learn anything at all?”
And I mean anything. Time, money, energy, age—none of it matters. You have zero limitations. Just pure curiosity.
People usually come up with stuff like scuba, learning a language, create content, picking up drums, etc.
TRY IT THIS WEEK.
Not next month. Not when you “have more time.” This week.
I call this your “ideal hobby”
And calling it a “hobby” is important because hobbies are supposed to be fun. There’s no pressure to be the best, or monetize it.
You even notice how social media completely killed this concept? Now everyone thinks if you’re not turning your passion into a side hustle, you’re wasting time.
No way.
There’s massive benefit in doing something purely out of curiosity. It puts you in flow state. It makes you interesting again.
So let me ask one more time:
“What would you learn if you could learn anything at all?”
Whatever you just thought of, go try it.
What’s your biggest takeaway? Hit reply and let me know. I make an effort to read every single one.
See you next week
CK
