HUB 8 OF 12 · 28 ARTICLES

Internal hurdles

Learn about the internal obstacles no one else can see, the self-doubt, old habits of mind, and the thinking errors that argue you out of your own progress.

  • The Purple Elephant

    “Try to pose for yourself this task, not to think of a polar bear, and you will see that the cursed thing will come to mind every minute.” Dostoevsky wrote that in 1863, and whether it be polar bears or purple elephants, often when we don’t want to think of something the reverse happens and…

  • The Law of Diminishing Returns

    The simple way of thinking about the law of diminishing returns is what happens when you reach the point where the effort you’re putting in is no longer worth what you’re getting out. Sometimes in life you just keep going, grinding way beyond that point, and you need to stop and ask yourself an honest…

  • Welcome to Internal Hurdles

    Welcome to Internal Hurdles. This is built around a single, honest premise: setbacks happen to everyone. The question was never whether you’d face them. It’s whether you have the tools, the understanding, and the mindset to get back up when they do. Most of the obstacles standing between you and the life you want aren’t…

  • Conditions of Worth

    This article is about conditions of worth — a term coined by the psychologist Carl Rogers for something most of us carry without ever naming it: the terms other people set, usually without meaning to, for when we’re allowed to feel good about ourselves. Rogers’ idea, from his 1959 theory of personality, is that from…

  • The 50–75% Stage: When the Obstacles Get Real

    There was a time you thought once you’d done the hard bit, it would start getting easier. Here’s the truth: it doesn’t. Not at this stage. Between 50% and 75%, everything gets harder, the obstacles get bigger, and the finish line starts looking further away than it did at the start. You’re past the point…

  • The Fallacy of Luck

    Some people believe luck is a mystical force, a kind of invisible favour that gets distributed to the chosen few and withheld from everyone else. An explanation for why some people seem to have everything handed to them while you’re left grinding away with nothing to show for it. I understand the appeal of that…