Whatever You Do, Don’t Choose This — It’ll Slowly Ruin Your Life

If you make this choice, you’ll be like so many other poor souls who became lost through no fault of their own — those who look back on their lives with regret.

They just didn’t know what not to do.

This deadly choice isn’t choosing drugs or alcohol.

It’s much more subtle.

In fact, it’s so camouflaged that it disguises itself as safety — while quietly poisoning your chances at the good life.

Wake up to it, before it’s too late — and whatever you do, don’t make this choice.

the only wrong choice

I was just a kid learning to drive.

My Dad was beside me in the passenger seat.

It was all going smoothly until we approached a learner driver’s worst nightmare.

The roundabout.

Give way to the right, or was it the left? When do I indicate again? Which exit is it?!

As we approached, I notice a car coming from the right.

Could I make it? Maybe?

I pressed the accelerator.

As I got closer and closer, I started to second guess myself.

I wasn’t so sure anymore.

At the very last second, I slammed the breaks — and so did the car in the roundabout.

Luckily no one was hurt — but my Dad taught me a lesson I’d never forget — one that I’ve carried with me my whole life:

“Never choose nothing.”

When you’re approaching the roundabout, you must choose to either go or stop — but never choose nothing.

When you make a choice, favourable or unfavourable, you allow everything else to react accordingly.

You allow the other car to either brake, or go.

But when you choose nothing, you hesitate — and when you hesitate, you’re in no-man’s land.

And no-man’s land is where everything crumbles:

• where most road accidents happen.
• where pedestrians collide by not choosing a side.
• where two teammates both leave the ball to go out of bounds because they think the other one was going to grab it.

When you choose nothing, you don’t get the benefit of committing to a choice — you get nothing.

Like sitting on the couch when you should be studying or working — you’re choosing not to do work, but also choosing not to relax.

Stuck in the torturous limbo of guilty nothing — no man’s land.

But car crashes, pedestrian collisions and couch guilt are only the surface level of ‘choosing nothing’ — it infiltrates every aspect of our lives.

Choosing nothing is what that separates the losers from the winners.

So why do you choose nothing, and how is it silently destroying your life?

Subscribe now and get the ‘Mindset Cheat Sheet - 8 spell-like reminders to instantly relax your shoulders and snap out of life's trances’ completely FREE! It won’t be free for long. (It’s in the Welcome email once you subscribe - check the spam/promotions folder)

choose something — anything — and you’ll be correct

“The person who gets the farthest is generally the one who is willing to do and dare.

The sure-thing boat never gets far from shore.”

— Dale Carnegie

You choose nothing out of fear of being wrong.

I don’t want to be wrong, so I won’t to choose at all.

But this is backwards thinking.

For he who chooses nothing is the only one who’s wrong 100% of the time.

It’s not the one who’s always correct that succeeds, it’s the one who minimises the time between idea and action.

They choose, and if they’re wrong, they use that as a data point to inform their next decision.

They iterate and iterate — getting infinitely closer to perfection.

When the one who’s scared to make a choice never makes one — they’re never wrong, but they make no progress.

See the below chart of two men — let the y-axis be accuracy and the x-axis be attempts:

• the green man may start further away from 0 but gets closer and closer with each choice.
• the blue man starts closer, but never iterates — never gets any closer.

If you wait for the perfect and most informed choice, you’ll end up like the blue man — constantly waiting and basking mediocrity.

The successful, like the green line, are decisive — they’re not afraid to be wrong, and that’s their strength.

Summary

The lessons to take away:

• Don’t hesitate, take action — you’re bound to be wrong a lot — so you might as well get that out of the way as fast as possible and iterate for correctness.
• Avoid no-man’s land — being in the middle of decisions is the worst possible place to be. You get none of the benefits of committing, and all of the consequences of not committing.
• Don’t measure your success on how close your first attempt was — but how fast you can take action and stick with it.

Choose something — anything.

And as long as you use your errors as datapoints to improve, you’ll be successful.

I’ll leave you with this:

“I hope that in this year to come, you make mistakes.

Because if you are making mistakes, then you are making new things, trying new things, learning, living, pushing yourself, changing yourself, changing your world.

You’re doing things you’ve never done before, and more importantly, you’re Doing Something." — Neil Gaiman

Thank you for reading.

To change your life, all you need to do is change your mind - change the way you think.

I hope my articles can plant a seed. A seed that you must water.

If you enjoyed it, please consider subscribing - these are free and go straight into your inbox every Saturday morning.

And if you subscribe now, you’ll get the ‘Mindset Cheat Sheet - 8 spell-like reminders to instantly relax your shoulders and snap out of life's trances’ completely FREE! It won’t be free for long, so get in early :)
(It’s in the Welcome email once you subscribe - check the spam/promotions folder)