007 | From Awareness to Action.

Becoming the Person You Know You Need to Be.

Most people already know what they need to do.

They know they need to work out, get better sleep, and stop scrolling.

They know they should be building skills, saving money, or planning to exit a toxic relationship.

The awareness comes easy. You feel it in your gut. You get anxious just thinking about it. Worse, the feeling often debilitates more than it empowers.

Awareness feels productive- it’s clean and comforting. Writing down a goal, or talking about one, feels good. It feels like the first step toward solving the very thing you’re struggling with, and that’s because, well, it is.

The unfortunate truth is that most people stop there. Their goals become something they’ll “get around to” once they “have the time”. In other cases, we feel like the world needs to be a certain way before we ever take action.

However, there’s a hidden truth that’s both distressful and liberating.

You will never have more time than you do right now.

Our time is extremely limited, and we must understand now that there is no perfect time to start. As the saying goes, the best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now.

Here are five steps meant to empower you to plant your seeds, take care of them, and watch them grow.

1. Clarify your awareness.

In my previous essay, I talked about getting clear on your goals, and picking a direction to move in.

This task becomes easier when we get extremely clear on what we want. Saying “I need better habits” or “I need to get more disciplined” are vague, overwhelming, and don’t easily translate into action.

Instead, specify.

Clear awareness is saying “I waste my mornings when I spend too much time on my phone” or “I skip workouts when I overschedule my day”.

With these statements, a clear next step becomes much more evident. Just like that, you’re building momentum.

2. Shrink your next action to the point where becomes non-negotiable.

Actions die when the bar is too high.

When we create goals, we tend to imagine the “best thing” we can possibly do, and disappoint ourselves when we don’t live up to our own standards.

However, this thinking doesn’t have to be so binary. We can take another approach and scale down our next action to something so tiny, it feels almost stupid not to do it.

“Complete a full workout today” becomes “get your gym shoes on and go outside”.

“Write a full essay” becomes “finish one sentence”.

“Stop smoking cigarettes” becomes “smoke fewer cigarettes than I did yesterday”.

These actions can feel silly at times, almost embarrassing to be proud of. Frame this another way, and you realize:

a. You are mastering the art of showing up, which is often the hardest part.

b. You are building an identity closer to the type of person you want to be.

c. You are still building momentum. Even just an inch per day covers a football field in ten years.

You can lower the bar, but never drop it completely.

Your momentum is sacred.

3. Decide when, not if.

It’s easy to fail at executing on a habit if it’s left open-ended.

I’ve caught myself saying “I’ll work out if the weather is nice”, or “I’ll work on my side project tonight if I have the energy”, but these plans are conditional. It hands the burden of decision-making to your future self.

Only doing hard things when you feel like it is a poor strategy, because oftentimes, you won’t feel like it.

Instead, ignore the feelings that delay your goals. Build the habit into your day. “I go straight to the gym after I finish work” or “I will spend an hour on my side project at noon every Sunday” frames the action as an integral part of your day.

If you’re serious about it, the tasks on your to-do list should each have a time and place locked into your calendar.

If they don’t, you’re leaving your dreams up to chance.

4. Build friction against your worst self.

This idea rarely gets talked about, but it flips most recycled self-help advice on its head.

Your “ideal self” is always fictional, unless you’ve already achieved everything you want (if that’s the case, set bigger goals).

What’s far more real, however, is your worst self- the version that shows up when motivation is gone and instant gratification takes over. At 19, I was the embodiment of my worst self.

I’d eat fast food nearly every day, scrolled Twitter for hours, and wouldn’t exercise for days at a time. I had taken a semester off from school, recovering from a psychotic break. Here, I found myself with endless free time and zero ambition.

I never want to become this person again, although I catch glimpses of it from time to time. You probably know your worst self too.

My theory: your worst self is actually your default. It’s what we devolve into when the hard things feel too hard, or even pointless. It shows itself when ambition becomes undefinable. It’s what happens when our primal minds take the path of least resistance. It’s what we allude to when we tell others we’re currently “stuck in a rut”.

Luckily, there are ways to build friction into your life to make the “easy” path difficult to spiral into.

Here are some practical strategies that have helped me in the past:

-Delete apps that suck your time away. Out of sight, out of mind.

-Only go to the grocery store after you’ve eaten or exercised. You will eat whatever you bring into your home. Create a diet for your future self while it’s still easy.

-Choose a gym close to your home or office.

-Find an accountability partner with similar goals to yours, and holds you to your word.

Willpower is as overrated as it is limited. Use friction to make the right action easier to take than the wrong one.

5. Track your proof.

At this point, you’re taking action. But how can you prove you’re getting closer to the person you want to be?

Create a visible signal showing you did what you said you’d do. This could be as simple as an X on a calendar, a daily checklist, or a streak counter. Don’t focus on outcomes just yet- we gain momentum by building confidence and trust in ourselves.

Every promise you fulfill makes the next one easier to keep. Do this for a month, and the results will come to you.

Awareness vs. Action

Awareness is the first step, but it won’t change your life.

You can read all the right books, deeply reflect on your life, and make a plan to change, but nothing happens until you act.

Repetitive, boring, unsexy action is what creates real change.

You already know the work that needs to be done.

Do it today.

-KPG