How to achieve anything (not clickbait, I swear)

I've been thinking a lot about failure.

Why? Because like any normal person, fear of failure paralyzes me sometimes. And I've been feeling it more often than I'd like to lately.

However, fear is meant to be confronted.

I went on a quest inside me, to figure out why this is keeping me up at night, and to find a better alternatives.

And the answers that came were surprising, but also counter-intuitive. Here's what I found:

Defining failure

Definitions are what we believe things mean. Rules are what we believe needs to happen for another thing to be true. Our definitions and rules make up most of our belief systems, whether we're conscious of them or not.

They define our experience of life.

Knowing that I can change my definitions and rules if they're not serving me is one of my core mental frameworks for happiness. I could write an entire email about this (maybe I will soon). Today, I'd like to share the beginning of that with you.

When you encounter limiting beliefs, the first thing to do is question your definitions (in this case, what failure means) and your rules (what has to be true for you to fail).

On the opposite side, it's also worth it to understand how we see success, with its definition and its rules.

Here's how this works: If you want to play life on hard mode, create definitions and rules that make it hard to feel good and easy to feel bad. If you want to play life on easy mode, create definitions and rules that make it easy to feel good and hard to feel bad.

What the hell does that mean?

Well, if you only let yourself feel successful once you've hit a 6 figure income, you're in a perfect relationship where you never have conflicts, and your body is at a very specific point, it's going to be really easy for you to feel like a failure.

What if instead, you called yourself successful every time you woke up above ground? You'd probably feel successful a lot more often.

If you want to format this in an easier way, think of it like this:

When creating your definitions and rules for emotions you want to experience more often, start the sentence like this: "every time x, y, z, a, b, or c happens, I feel _____."

Give yourself different options on how to reach the feeling. The more the better.

Now, when making your definitions and rules for emotions you want to feel less often, write them like this:

"only if I were to consistently focus on the debilitating/false belief that (insert disempowering belief) instead of remembering (the truth, which your higher self knows)."

Let's see this in practice. Let me share with you how I reframed my definitions and rules to reduce my fear of failure and increase my feelings of success.

• I feel success every time I wake up and I am in good health, have people who love me, have the capacity to create, change, or learn something.

• I would feel failure only if I were to consistently focus on the false belief that I learned nothing from the experiences I have had.

• I would feel failure only if I were to consistently focus on the debilitating belief that I can't change the situation I'm in.

Do you see how this makes it virtually impossible to fail?

Under these definitions, if you learn, you're not failing. And when things go wrong, you're bound to learn something. You're successful as long as you remember and see all the good things in your life.

This part is crucial.

It's what will determine if you ever feel successful or not. Contrary to popular belief, success doesn't come from achievement. Success comes from believing you are successful.

This is how to make yourself believe that.

And it's not "fake it til you make it" either.

It's about genuinely feeling satisfied with the life you lead. With feeling what you do matters. And that comes from internal work, not from achieving itself.

I know what you're thinking.

Sure, that takes care of the emotional part, but I want to get things done. How am I actually going to achieve things with this?

Now that we got the emotional part taken care of, let me tell you.

How to ensure success in the material sense

By material, I don't mean monetary. I mean material as in tangible, as in "actually getting results."

The first thing you need is clarity.

What do you want to achieve? What's the end goal? Get as specific as you can.

This may be a specific goal relating to one area of your life (to do 100 pushups, for example) or it may be an overarching goal for your life (to be happier, or live a more meaningful life, or create a career you truly love).

This clarity is your North Star. Especially for the days when the going gets tough.

For the most part, North Star doesn't change.

The next thing you need to figure out is your approach.

There's a quote attributed to Ralph Waldo Emerson that says “Methods are many, but principles are few. Methods always change. Principles never do.”

The principles are the essential concepts or actions that will take you where you want. These are mostly universal and don't change. The methods are the specific strategies, techniques, and tricks to do it.

I recommend you to be stubborn on the principles, study them endlessly. Stay flexible on the methods, treating them like science experiments.

These first two steps are related to something I heard Dan Koe say in an episode of his podcast, Modern Mastery, and which inspired most of this newsletter. He said "Mind on the North Star, eyes on the path."

This means, keep your goal present, it gives you direction. But keep your eyes and feet on the path: the small consistent actions taken upon the principles. This is the only thing that will get you where you want to go.

Here's the truth: humans are social beings.

We are not meant to do things alone. Especially hard things. We need support: people who can cheer us on when things get hard, who believe in us, who will open doors for us, or connect us with someone who knows someone.

Can you accomplish certain things without help? Sure.

But when it comes to big, meaningful goals? It's harder, at best, and nearly impossible, at worst.

Your support network is the people who will hold you accountable, who will remind you why you're going through the trouble in the first place, who will give you a shoulder to cry on when you have bad days (hey, those will happen), who will celebrate you when you finally accomplish your goals.

A good network of people will make your goals more likely, more fun, and more fulfilling.

Invest time in building a good team around you, and the returns will be immeasurable.

Sure, everything stated above seems simple enough.

But what happens when things go wrong? When regardless of our updated definitions and relentless action, we feel like we've failed? What happens when we fall?

There is only one way to get to where your North Star is. And it's much less romantic.

It's to stand up, dust yourself off, and keep trying.

Refuse to quit.

Make reaching your North Star the only option.

Do whatever it takes. Stack your mistakes and failures until the only option left is to succeed.

If you keep trying, and keep walking, and stay on the path, you will inevitably get to your North Star. Maybe not as fast as you wanted. Maybe it will not be as fast as it is for others.

But if your goal means enough for you to keep walking in spite of everything, you will get there.

How I know this is true

I am a dancer. More specifically, a dance teacher.

But when I first took classes, I had two left feet. Worse than any student I've ever taught, and I mean that 100%.

At 18, I was told by the principal of the dance school I was in that I'd never be able to make a career in dance. That there were children who were ten years younger than me and had more talent and experience than I ever would. Mind you, I'd been dancing for over 6 years by then.

The only reason why I do have a career in dance is because I refused to believe her, and went into three years of intensive education to make myself good, both at dancing and teaching.

Those three years were filled with challenges, frustration, and stress. I forced myself to become good at something that I had nearly no natural talent for. I had help. I had incredible mentors who held me accountable, and good support systems who supported me all throughout. This was crucial.

I would've gotten nowhere on my own. I'd be just another person with a dream I gave up on.

Eventually, all the hard work started to show.

And now, most of my income comes from dance, and I think if 18 year-old me saw me dance, her jaw would drop.

I took something I had no natural strengths in, no talent, and made it my career. More importantly, I proved to myself that it was possible.

There's a lot of things to consider. I've seen people this year do what took me three years, in six months. People who had a lot more natural talent, both for dancing and teaching. I could let this be a source of frustration.

But it makes me feel proud of myself. Because I never gave up.

I proved to myself that I can do hard things, and that if I'm willing to do them, rewards will come eventually. On my own time. In my own way.

I know this from experience. I know this because I've lived it.

Regardless of your perception of me, it's not a "sure, easy for you to say" kind of situation.

It was not, in any way, easy for me. I had to deal with an amount of challenges that, if I told you about them, would keep you here reading for hours. I've clawed my way to what I'm telling you here.

I'm no different from you, or anyone. I'm a regular person who committed to staying on the path as long as it took to create the results and life I wanted.

And I'm telling you this because no goal is too big, as long as your conviction and determination to see it through is bigger.

I'm telling you this, because I want you to see similar results in your life.

I want to see you accomplish your true dreams, the ones so big they keep you up at night.

The ones you'd chase if you knew you could not fail.

They're worth chasing.

TL;DR

Let's do a quick recap.

You can achieve anything you want if you:

1. Know where you're going (North Star)

2. Take immense amounts of small actions in that direction (The Path)

3. Have a strong support network keeping you accountable + backing you up (The Team)

4. Refuse to quit in the face of challenge (The Roadblocks)

Three art recs

Phew, today's newsletter was a lot. Let's end on a lighter note.

Here's some art I think is worth sharing:

1. Music: I've been blasting this for three days on repeat. It had been months since I'd been so heavily obsessed with a song. I even learned it on the piano.

2. Movie: If you're in need of some fantasy, check this out. It has it all: a likable hero, a great story, witches, humor, and a comforting feeling like few others I've watched. Super underrated gem.

3. Poem: I first read this poem over a year ago, when a friend put it in a letter she wrote me, but it's been on my mind this week. The author is Laura Gilpin. It softens my heart in a way I can't explain.

I hope your week ends on a high note, that you feel hopeful for the future and happy to be who you are. Luckily we're still at a point in which I know all the subscribers in this newsletter by name, and I can confirm you're all pretty amazing. I hope you get to see that.

Sending you a warm hug and a figurative cup of hot chocolate,

-Vale, The Friendly Artist.