The myth of fixing your thoughts
Self-help gurus will tell you to manage every negative thought, to police your inner dialogue with affirmations and forced positivity. I tried that. It doesnât work. You just become obsessed with controlling your mind, turning every thought into another problem to fix, and you
canât.
Thatâs not freedom. Thatâs another cage.
The truth is, you donât need to fix your thoughts. You need to drown them.
How? With action.
Action creates identity
You donât think your way into being confident. You act
your way there.
Confidence isnât the absence of fear or doubtâitâs the evidence youâve built from doing. Every small act is proof to your subconscious that you are the kind of person who gets things done.
Thatâs how identity shifts. One action at a time.
Write a paragraph.
Send the email.
Try the thing youâve been putting off.
Do it badly if you have to. But do it.
Each action builds momentum. Momentum silences the critic because the critic feeds on inaction. The less you do, the more room the critic has to gnaw at you. The more you do, the
less it has to say.
Thatâs why some of the people you envy arenât half as tortured as you are. Theyâre not better. Theyâre just moving.
Where to start
When I finally understood this, I stopped waiting for clarity, perfection, or motivation. I leaned into small, repeatable actions. For me, that was creating worlds and
charactersâwriting posts about what I was learning, sharing my perspective as a Black speculative fiction author, documenting the journey.
It wasnât always pretty. Some days I didnât feel like it. But the habit of creatingâeven a paragraph, even a post no one likedâshifted my self-image.
Suddenly, I wasnât just âan aspiring author.â I was a writer. And that identity
made the next action easier, which in turn made the next one easier.
Momentum is the secret most people miss. You donât need to be the smartest in the room. You donât need the best connections. You donât even need to be fearless.
You just need to act. Consistently.
Because action compounds. One post can
lead to a conversation. One conversation can lead to an opportunity. And one opportunity can change your life.
The real difference
The difference between you and the person living the life you want might be smaller than you think. Not talent. Not luck. Not even timing.
Itâs that they stopped criticising themselves long enough
to do the work.
So the next time that voice pipes upââYouâre not good enough, youâre not ready, youâll look stupidââask yourself: if people with less talent, less discipline, less experience can do itâŚ
Why not me?
Why not now?
You donât need
permission.
You just need motion.
Peace, love and power.
             Â
