Don’t ever count on the security of Plan A. Part of thinking strategically is to give some thought, however little, to “but what if…?”

The best time to muse about a problem is before the stress of it presents itself.

Some fascinating research I just learned about: Turning something you want to accomplish into an identity instead of an action increases the likelihood that you’ll do it.

I’ve written about the opposite effect before, how people can let negative but temporary elements of their existence become core aspects of their identity and thus never overcome them. But it turns out this effect can be harnessed for good!

Instead of saying, “I’m going to get my to-do list done today,” trying framing it as “I’m the kind of person who finishes their to-do list.” Don’t just say “I won’t procrastinate,” say “I’m not a procrastinator,” and watch the change start to take hold.

I didn’t just write today. I’m a writer!

If you can come up with an idea for something you’d like to do that takes three or more steps, execute that idea the same day you came up with it, and not disrupt the normal responsibilities of your day otherwise, then you have an exceptional level of competence.

If you think that what I just described is easy, that’s because you can do it – and because you don’t realize that most people can’t.

Find a way to use that power to the benefit of others, and you’ll lead a rich and full life.

“Measure twice, cut once” is good advice. But the marginal return for each additional measurement drops dramatically.

Gathering the same information over and over again doesn’t make the cutting easier, more efficient, or sharper. But it definitely delays you, makes you question yourself, and adds to your costs.

Eventually, you can measure, measure, measure – and never cut at all.

Often, the best change you can make to your environment is to leave.

Whether it’s your job, your house, your state, your country – there will be things about “where you are” that you want to change. If you can make positive changes, do so! But there will always be limits on how far you can move the needle, and being stubbornly attached to a particular environment is just status quo bias in action.

Swap schools. Get a different apartment. Find a new job. These are all very viable options, and will often bring about the changes you want more swiftly than trying to eke out progress where you are.

Don’t abandon freedom. Go where the action is.

Excuses are evasion. You use them to get out of trouble, but you can’t get out of trouble with yourself and the results in your own life. If you’re making different excuses to yourself about why a problem persists, that’s one part of your brain betraying the rest of it. Don’t excuse – examine. If you need the help, around the third excuse is the time to ask for it.

I find I remember things from a long time ago fine, and recent memories fine as well, but things in the “middle distance” of about ten years ago are all a blur. I wonder if that’s a moving number, or if that time period was just the chaotic beginnings of my fatherhood so it’s all a blur.

Memory is funny – and fallible. But there’s joy in that, too. You can go exploring things that have familiar hints but new details. Old books, trips you’d like to repeat, even friends you haven’t chatted with in a while.

The past is a foreign country, but it’s very tourist-friendly.

You watch a man begin to build a grand tower. He works very hard and very diligently, taking each step in turn. He pours a solid foundation, carefully laid. He selects excellent building material and creates a solid frame. He fills in floor by floor. When he’s placing the last stone in the grand façade, he lays it slightly crooked. Upon seeing his mistake, he demolishes the entire tower. Not only that, but he never attempts to build another – he starts completely over with a totally new kind of building.

You’d think the man was insane, right? Instead of simply correcting the mistake and, at most, picking a different stone as the final piece, he scrapped everything he had worked on.

Insane as it is, I see people do exactly this all the time – usually in their careers.

I see people carefully research an industry to give themselves a foundation of knowledge about the work. They build a great resume, start networking, and practice interviewing, all for that field. They land an interview and take it through several rounds. Then, they don’t get the job – so they abandon the industry entirely, declaring firmly that they were wrong and it isn’t a good fit for them, after all.

Crazy! Persistent, tenacious people who will overcome any number of hurdles on their journey will nonetheless abandon the entire endeavor if they don’t overcome the last hurdle the first time they reach it. And I get it, that last hurdle is the most demoralizing. When you’re literally one step away from the goal and you get a setback, it stings more than if you stumble on something in the middle. But you’re still 99% of the way there, and all your other work is solid – after all, it got you to that last step, didn’t it?

Don’t overcome 99 obstacles only to let the final one defeat you. Your grand tower is only one last step away!

Today I took a squad of kids into the woods for a nature hike. They walked around barefoot in the lake, caught some interesting bugs, identified some plants, all that good stuff.

But at one point, my son shouted out, “I found treasure!”

He was as excited as could be. The treasure he’d found? A nickel and a golf ball.

But here’s the thing: that was treasure. Treasure is just novelty! It’s anything you don’t already have and don’t expect to find. It’s something in a weird place (like a golf ball in the woods, many miles from the nearest course). It’s anything that causes your imagination to wander, speculating on how this thing could have gotten to this place. (My son had no less than a dozen theories.)

If what you find does all that, then it’s worth it’s weight in golf balls.

If you’re the kind of person who likes debate and discourse primarily as a way of discovering new information and getting closer to the truth on a particular topic, it can be really disheartening when the other party reveals that they weren’t doing that at all – they were either trying to convince you of their point of view regardless of validity, or they were trying to score points with whatever audience there is.

I don’t like that any more than you do, so here are my tips to spot that mentality early so you can gracefully exit the conversation before you waste much time:

1. The other party tries to tell you that your point of view is based on some personality trait or personal aspect they find repugnant. If you state something you believe to be a fact, and their response isn’t to counter or question the fact, but to claim that you only said that because you hate a particular group of people, or because your economic position benefits from it, or whatever, that’s the perfect time to bow out. (Bonus: Since sometimes this is true, because motivated reasoning can come for us all, this works great as a self-filter as well. If the other person accuses you of this, you should bow out because of them if they’re wrong, and you should stop arguing anyway if they’re right. So either way, it’s a great signal that the conversation won’t be productive.)
2. The other party changes the definition of terms relating to your debate. For example, if you say 2 + 2 is four, and they say it’s five, and then you prove that it’s four – watch out for them trying to use a different definition of “plus” than “putting the two things together into one group.” That’s a sure sign that they’re not after truth, and they’ll dodge any facts to stay in their own comfort zone.
3. The other party rejects talking about their own points. If you ask for clarification on a point they’ve made and they can’t provide it, then they’re likely just parroting things and you’ve reached the limit of what you can learn from them. Thank them for what they’ve already said, and depart!

Seek truth, but beware – there are many distractions along the way.