Life is hard, it’s complicated and tough, but at the same time beautiful and challenging. Yet, most of us make our lives hard than they ought to be by being our worst enemy.

No one destroys a man’s life quite as effectively as himself. And it’s not even the negative self-talk that does it, nor is it a limited belief in what he can do that claims his potential – though both are important.

The thing that overwhelmingly ruins a man’s life is entitlement and it’s not-so-distant cousin, self-pity. (read: the best quote to gain power from tragedy)

Those are the lines of thinking, the way of looking at the world and how it ‘is’ that will claim your potential, make your life far more difficult than it should be, and degrade who you are and who you become. And yet, today we’re almost led to be entitled, pushed to pity ourselves, and encouraged to feel shitty about who we are because we measure ourselves by comparing where others are – and not even what they did to get there.

This article will deal with realities, facts, and truths about life and how the world works.

You can continue to deal with the world subjectively, but regret and depression will be your permanent companions.

Why deal with reality?

You’ll get more confidence.

You’ll trust yourself more.

You’ll actually achieve more.

And you’ll improve.

First Fact: Humans Need Improvement

Simply put, this means you need to get better at things. Things meaning skills. You need to become more disciplined. You need to see progression in the various areas of your life that matter to you, excuses are irrelevant.

You need to grow your bank account, you need to get in better shape, you need to become more wise. (read: to suffer well is to live well)

Second Fact: You’re Worse Than You Can Be

You know you can be better. Accepting that you’re not as good as you can be takes at least some responsibility for the fact that you are not where you want to be – yet.

You have room to grow; you need to grow.

Third Fact: There Are Good Options and Bad Options

You have hundreds of little decisions you make on a daily basis, and there is always the right option and the wrong option. The more of the wrong options you make – like reading when you should be working (I’m looking at myself here) – the worse you become, and the further from your goals you are moved.

Making the right choice is typically doing what you had set out to do immediately rather than wasting time in between that action. (read: 10 ways to develop confidence)

Fourth Fact: Time Moves Constantly, You Have to Match It

A day off when you shouldn’t have a day off isn’t just that day wasted, it’s a regression because time has moved forward.

Another way of looking at it is that you have a certain amount of time to become who you can become, the faster you get there the more likely you are to reach your goals and then some.

If you take too longer, however, the opportunity that would have been can be lost. Someone else could take your place in the market because they worked harder, faster. You’ll get another chance if you create it, but that one’s gone.

Time waits for no one. To waste it – even in small amounts – is to waste your life.

That may not seem like anything massive, but one day it will. It’ll sting to know that you took too long to become who you can be because you were lazy and entitled.

Fifth Fact: You Are Where You Deserve to Be

Good things usually happen because of momentum. (read: you’re lucky to be alive)

Momentum is created by you, over time. It takes a long time to build momentum and to eventually start experiencing the winfall that momentum produces, but that same momentum can be lost in a day, in a moment, and you have to start all over again.

You are where you deserve to be. Taking momentum into consideration, your victory can be around the corner, but it’s only around the corner when you’re moving the needle daily. Stop moving the needle and that corner is pushed far further into the future.

You just kicked your own ass, sealed your own fate.

If you are where you deserve to be, the thing to do is to change where you deserve to be by becoming better.

You have to be so good they can’t ignore you. That means you have to get so good at a skill – even if it’s being the best at your job, a job you hate. The better you are at something the more likely success becomes.

It truly is about the skill, about the process, not the end.

To think you deserve more than you have, however, is to degrade the value of work. It’s to pity yourself, to whine and cry about what is. It’s futile and destructive.

Sixth Fact: Pity Gets You Nothing

It can feel good to feel sorry for yourself, but it doesn’t get you closer to your goal. Rather, it pushes you further away from it.

Entitlement almost always coincides with self-pity. If you feel you deserve something that you don’t have you won’t do the work to get what you want.

And it always takes work.

Seventh Fact: You Can Get What You Want, And Then Some, But It’s Entirely On You – And That’s GOOD.

The reality is that people have gotten and achieved what we want – or close to it – and to a greater degree, coming from worse circumstances. There are no excuses. We have what we have. We are where we are. We must do the best with both. And right now we’re not – no matter how good we’re doing.

We also limit ourselves by degrading what we chase and then degrading what we feel we can do in a day and how long we can endure the uncertainty of whether what we’re doing is truly working.

The alternative is to quit, to give up, to pity yourself and to simply lose at life.

All you can really do is to work hard. Work really hard. Never stop working. Never stop learning and adjusting. Never stop improving. Never stop doing the things that help you get better, and sometimes that does mean a vacation, a trip somewhere to change your scenery for work, or a day of adventure and play.

Forget about judging yourself against others. Forget about judging where you are to where you want to be. Be here in the moment, focused on the craft, focused on learning, and improve.

Wake up earlier tomorrow and do the same.