Separate Yourself.

There’s been many occasions in the past few years where I would find myself doing something because it felt like the right thing to do, someone else around me was doing it or maybe it’s what I was used to doing. This could range from one circumstance or action to a completely different one but we’ll get into that.

The thing is, It didn’t always sit right with me. It doesn’t sit right with me. The one thing that usually comes with people caring about you is that they will want you to have fun, to be comfortable, to be happy which is 100% normal. I would say I feel the same about the people around me but to a certain extent.

However from the age of around 15 I’ve had something planted in me that has told me I need to be different, abnormal, uncomfortable. I think now it is more prominent than ever, years of researching successful people, listening to the people who continue to do groundbreaking work, reading words of the percent of humans that would be classed as extraordinary has over time created a neural pathway in my brain that doesn’t want comfortability, growth cannot come when you are comfortable…it’s pretty impossible. I have to look at the moments I feel most like myself in comparison to the ones which I don’t.

Usually the moments I feel most like myself is when I’m working out, learning, reading, writing, going through a process of pain to reach a point of growth.

I’ve sat with friends, I’ve been for dinners, I’ve been on holiday, I’ve had FUN…but fortunately and unfortunately in these moments I’ve always felt like I should be working. Time isn’t running out, I will never view life as though it is, nonetheless time still passes and to make a difference you have to ‘do’. DO something important, DO something meaningful, DO something life changing.

If I’m engaging in conversations that aren’t about anything beneficial or educational I usually see them as wasted words. It easy to be sucked into meaningless conversations nowadays, conversations that include gossip, complaining or that hold useless information and for a while I’ve thought it was wrong to think this, I’ve felt rude when I have simply wanted to end a conversation quicker because I don’t care about what’s being spoken about.

It’s taken me some time to acknowledge the fact that my thinking isn’t wrong at all, in order to be able to give to others, to the people in my life or to help people in the world in general I have to be entirely who I am. If that makes me completely crazy to some people, abnormal to others. That’s okay.

If you were to see someone doing something that you would never imagine doing, you would think of them as crazy. Not everyone will understand you because they couldn’t do what you do and that’s because what you are is not what they are.

I have had conversations before with previous colleagues that left me frustrated, they would complain every day about how they hated their job, their lives, they had no energy or will power. Yet they didn’t care enough to change anything, I couldn’t understand why if they were so unhappy, so unfulfilled that they would remain in the same position. Now I realise its because they don’t have that same little thing planted inside them to want more and to do more that I do. They are content with being miserable, for what reason I will never understand but I am not meant to. I’m not meant to understand because I will never be like them the same way they will never be like me.

I have recently watched Andrew Hubermans podcast with David Goggins and I HAD to watch it twice because the way that he thinks and the way that he speaks about himself is so rare, it is almost as if he has rewired his entire brain to be able to grow and continue to grow no matter what pain comes with it.

They use the word friction in the phrase Friction is growth, Goggins emphasises that true development arises from enduring discomfort. He intentionally seeks out challenges, such as skipping sleep or avoiding luxuries, to build mental fortitude. He could ’t care less about any one else in the world or what they are doing to enable him to maintain the person he has built himself up to be. He puts himself first because he knows what is owed to himself and in order to be able to deliver anything to his loved ones then this is a must, because without that grit, without the will power and the pain there is no David Goggins.

So many individuals will hear how he speaks about his life and wonder why anyone would do that to themselves but there’s something that happens to everyone who has had extremely tough times, mentally and physically. If you hit a low, it’ll take a while but you’ll probably get out of it pretty scar free but when a person hits rock bottom time and time again, being able to come back from that, pull yourself out and decide that is not your life and then begin to change it. Those people understand Goggins mentality, I don’t wish hardship or dark times on anyone but I do think those are the moments where you really see who you are and who you’re willing to be.

I’m extremely grateful for the dark times, I wouldn’t have it any other way because in them moments my willpower was born, the days you don’t want to be here but you remain, the moments you can’t go on anymore but you do, the times where the easiest thing would be to give up but you keep going. In those moments it’s you versus you and that’s all there is, no matter who or what is around you, that’s an inner demon that only you can fight and once you’ve defeated it once, it gets easier and easier every single time. Im at the point where I just laugh at the demon, it can’t touch me anymore.

I KNOW who I am, and if separating myself is what keeps me knowing then thats what will be done. I know what I’ve got to do to fulfil myself and that is all that matters to me, because without doing that I’m no use to anybody.

If you stop learning, stop growing, stop trying to better yourself than where is the path taking you, because that looks like the direction towards a dead end.

It might sound harsh but everyone has untouched potential, every single human. Whether the world gets to see it or not is unto them.

The world’s going to see mine by force.

Sending purpose,

K.