Embrace The Suck

Ramit Sethi's "Hell Week" -- Day 2.

Day 1 pushed our physical limits, Day 2 is designed to break through our mental limits. It's a multistep process. You think about what you want to achieve, what your goal is. You start to visualize it, sights, sounds, smells, and how you feel. Then, you listen to your mind tell you why this isn't possible. When you hear your mind do this, you "embrace the suck," and combat your fears and push through it. The next steps are the hardest.

You know why your mind says you can't do this. Now you need to reflect, sit still for 12 minutes, and practice deep breathing. This is not the hard part. You start "box breathing." This is where you use your chest, diaphragm, and belly, and breathe in for a 4-count, exhale a 6- or 8-count, and immediately inhale 4-count again. What this does is relax you. It wasn't hard. I trained myself to monitor my breathing and do that when I was studying Tony Robbins, so not hard at all. The point of this is to relax you and really screen out all the mental noise. Maybe this was easy for me because I could really let my mind wander, and I had a fire soundtrack to boot.

Then you have to reflect on your goal, and figure out at least one thing you will do to attain it, and actually sit down and do it.

We "embrace the suck" all the time, whether it's doing our taxes, jumping through bureaucratic hoops, or cutting a toxic connection loose, we power through it because it needs to get done. Your goals need to "get done" as well. My choice is to finally sit down and revamp my online profile. New site, regular updates, and really bring my reboot online. More on that later.