Maybe you're not Actually Trying.

I find myself going back to read this incredible article by Cate Hall every time I feel like something is not going right in my life or that I have disappointed myself.

It’s about how even though we might think we are trying hard to solve a problem in our lives, we might not actually be trying.

[…] feeling of effort doesn’t mean that you’re Actually Trying.

These are the key points from that article:

1. People are not just high-agency or low-agency in a global sense, across their entire lives. Instead, people are selectively agentic.
2. It seems like, by default, you are stuck with whatever level of resourcefulness you brought to a problem the first time you encountered it and failed to fix it.

I would be careful when applying the 2nd point to past situations because it is tempting to evade accountability by blaming circumstances in life at that point of time. Instead, I’d tackle it by asking myself:

1. Have I done my best to come up with a set of potential solutions, using all the resources I have?
2. Am I doing as well by myself as I would by any friend who came to me with the same problem? How do I know I’m Actually Trying?

I really like this because it reminds me of the Sam Harris quote:

“On one level, wisdom is nothing more profound than an ability to follow one’s own advice.”