Extreme selflessness is when a person gets so invested in others that their very self begins to fade away.

We see this in our family, friends, and co-workers - people who are so invested in meeting the needs of others that they neglect their own.

This is a silent and deadly threat that, in a way, kills oneself.

Heck, you may even be a victim of this. I sure was.

Reinforced Selflessness

We’re taught to be selfless from a young age. To steward our time, money, and energy for the sake of others.

What about the times where we’re the ones who need help? Those moments where we’re busy, broke, or tired, yet we give anyway because we’ve been taught to.

This may seem like a selfish question, but if you don’t consider yourself, you will remain trapped in a cycle of self-depletion until there’s nothing left to give.

There are times when your family asks for another favour, your friends want to make plans, and your boss asks you to stay late.

Before you commit yourself, you must consider the state of these three resources. If you say yes while depleted, you enter into a debt that you yourself must pay back.

There have been many times where I’ve said yes despite having nothing left to give. Instead of giving out of joy, I was giving out of perseverance and obligation. Eventually, it reached a point where I had to step back for extended periods to recover.

Regrets

Here are the top 5 deathbed regrets based on the works of Bonnie Ware:

1. I wish I had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me

2. I wish I hadn’t worked so hard

3. I wish I had the courage to express my feelings

4. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends

5. I wish I had let myself be happier

These regrets are the result of either prioritizing others too much or too little. The challenge is finding the balance between caring both for others and ourselves in a way that’s sustainable.

This is why it’s so important to be self-aware in these situations, because if we’re not, we may find ourselves reflecting on these same regrets later on.

Resolution

Selflessness can be just as harmful as selfishness. One harms you while the other harms those around you.

There’s no single method to balance the two, but understanding the consequences can help us make more careful decisions. One of those decisions is knowing when to give and when to set boundaries.

You don’t always have to say yes, because you’re allowed to say no.

Sure, people may be disappointed, but you need to keep yourself in mind too.

When you take care of yourself, you become more capable of taking care of others.

So be selfish, but be selfish to a degree.

A great example of this is a restaurant menu.

I’ve been to restaurants that serve dozens of items, all of which tasted mediocre, yet the most unforgettable dining experiences I’ve had came from restaurants with only a handful of dishes.

The focus switches from producing more to producing better.

This is something that’s constantly emphasized in Gordon Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares. By removing unnecessary complexity, you create the space needed to focus on what matters most.

Before I begin my work, I write down 2-3 priorities, dedicating around an hour to each.

Here’s what my typical list looks like:

• Read

• Write

• Exercise

In roughly three hours, I’ve made more progress than I previously did in twice the amount of time.

Why is this?

1. Working consistently at my best compounds long-term

2. Risk of burnout remains minimal

3. Even on a busy day, 2-3 focused hours is achievable

This is something that Psychologist K. Anders Ericsson studied; he found that elite performers can sustain only 4-5 hours of practice per day. Attempting to push beyond this limit led only to diminishing returns - otherwise known as mediocrity.

Often, there are days where I’ll spend an hour on the computer and only have written a few sentences. Some days I don’t write anything new; I just change the paragraph structure and then call it a day.

Day by day, I make small, refined efforts rather than big, unnecessary disruptions.

This is how work is perfected: through simplicity.

This means that 85-90% of what we worry about, such as money, health, and family, never takes place.

We’ve all had moments where we’re lying awake, thinking about all the scenarios that could lead us to losing our job, our home, or even our life!

But looking back, where did we actually end up?

If we all went through life as if most of our fears and doubts were fiction, what would our lives look like?

What kind of work would we do? What sort of money would we make? What type of relationships would we have?

This statistic kind of changes everything, because nearly everything we think that’s holding us back… isn’t.

It’s as if we’re victims of our own mind.

Another term to describe this is learned helplessness. This occurs when repeated experiences of failure become so persistent that we stop believing our actions can change the outcome, even when success may be closer than we think.

Once you’re in this state, it’s horrific, because even though there’s a way out, your mind is convinced that there isn’t - leaving you stuck until you confront yourself. Which, for some, can take decades.

This is why challenging your thinking is so important. The life you’re living is often limited by the beliefs your mind refuses to question.

To avoid this, you must expose yourself to perspectives that challenge your thinking, helping you see your life from a third-person view.

Once you understand and act on the fact that you’re truly limited by your own mind, you will then have full control over your life.

Confronting yourself is confronting fear at its source.

Consuming information is not harmless; whether you realize it or not, it either breaks you down or builds you up.

Those who rise above the masses know this. They deliberately guard what enters their minds because they understand it ultimately shapes who they become.

But only you can decide that for yourself.

You decide who influences your mind; no one else does it for you.

This quote is not limited to your friends. You are also the average of the videos you watch, the podcasts you listen to, the books you read, and the posts you scroll.

When you filter out the information you consume, you’ll find that your conversations, ideas, and performance significantly improve. The information no longer pulls you away from your life - it adds to it.

Before I watch a movie, read a book, or go on social media, I first ask myself, ‘What value is this bringing to my life?’

If the movie has nothing meaningful to offer, I move on.

If the book stretches the idea too far, I skip to the next chapter.

If I check my social media metrics, I remind myself that the best investors don’t get emotionally attached.

Or as Warren Buffett puts it,

It’s easy to think that the villain in your story is your device - you probably see it as something that distracts you and steals from you.

But that’s just not true.

Your device gives you access to more information than any generation in history has ever had.

It’s only you who decides whether it breaks you down or builds you up.

Nothing compounds when you’re spontaneous; it’s only repetitive routines that do. This is exactly how people master skills and techniques, the boring way.

This past year has given me the most effective results I’ve ever had in my 8 years of working out.

Previously, I would eat whatever I wanted, sleep whenever I wanted, and exercise whichever muscle I wanted.

After years of this, it ultimately got me nowhere near where I aspired to be. It was when my routine became locked in with intention that progress started to accumulate.

Instead of doing whatever I wanted, I was doing whatever was needed.

The daily routine of counting calories, sleeping 8 hours, and leaving no muscle behind.

Check out my gym progress here.

I’ve committed to this mundane routine for over a year, and 80% of the time I don’t want to show up - but I do anyway out of habit.

When you give your body all the resources it needs to grow and continually challenge it, the results are guaranteed. It has no choice but to adapt, and that’s an incredible situation to be in.

So, show up even when it’s boring; the results are compounding behind the scenes.

Steven King, one of the best writers in the horror genre, received 30 rejections for Carrie before it was published. Carrie sold over 4 million copies.

Zen and The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, the record holder for the most rejections, received a Guinness World Record for being rejected 121 times before it was published in 1974. It sold over 5 million copies worldwide.

Failure is not a bad thing at all; it’s necessary to reach success, mandatory even.

There is such a thing as failing well. You refuse to be discouraged and instead analyze what went wrong and find ways to make the situation better.

For my business statistics course, I failed with a 46% on my first exam. After I got that mark, I honestly thought my diploma was over, but it wasn’t. I went for a walk, journaled, and came back with a solution. I found a tutor, and I booked multiple 2-hour sessions that ended up costing me over $300, but it was worth it. On the next exam, I got a 72%.

When I took the introduction to accounting course, I failed the first exam, receiving another 46%! Instead of getting discouraged and quitting, I reached out to my network and contacted a friend who’s a professional accountant. Throughout multiple sessions, we probably spent over 15 hours working through accounting questions, and that effort paid off when I earned a 73% on the next exam.

Failure is not a sign to give up. Giving up is a sign of failure.

Yes, I’ve failed assignments, quizzes, and exams. But at the end of the day, I passed the class and met the requirements to graduate. So, did I really fail? No.

You will fall, and you will stumble, but it all leads to the big success.

But you must fail.

You see people running around and driving all over the city, but year after year, they still are out of shape, still in debt, and still unhappy.

Maybe after 10 years, they start to see a few changes occur, but that’s not why you’re reading this.

1. Know The Difference Between Forced and Proactive Busyness

• Forced Busyness - Being occupied with tasks driven by a lack of control over your schedule.

• Proactive Busyness - Being occupied with tasks that you have intentionally chosen, which align with your core goals and values.

These past few years have honestly been a blur for me. It was the same routine with zero direction; all I did was show up to work and then lie in bed to scroll. I was invisible, I wasn’t moving - wasn’t changing.

You know those puzzles where you are to spot the difference between the two images? Between the years, there was no difference in me. It was pathetic.

Things are different now. Now, I’m intentional with my busyness, and my goals are no longer delusional.

2. Get Realistic

How do you eat a whole elephant?

One bite at a time.

Striving to get 4-5 things done a day is overwhelming, and realistically, you have other things to do on top of that.

Let’s say this is your list:

• Avoid the phone until 11am

• Read 30 minutes a day

• Workout 4 times a week

• Journal before bed

This is a great list. The only thing is that it’s not just 4 things to do per day.

There’s also:

• Make breakfast

• Mow the lawn

• Do the laundry

• Take the car to the mechanic

Don’t set your goals for the highest quantity, which can lead you to achieve the lowest quality. If you do this, you’ll end up taking 10 years to complete 1 year’s worth of goals.

Instead, simplify your list and focus more on getting less done well than getting more done poorly.

3. Review and Change the Standard

Once a week, do a review of the past week’s progress.

• Goal 1 /25

• Goal 2 /25

• Execution /25

• Growth /25

/100

Mark each bullet honestly out of 25, explain below why it was good or not, and then add up the total.

Once you’ve nailed a habit or surpassed the goal, raise the bar.

Follow these three steps, and you’ll see the difference between years versus decades.