If you think you can't do something, prove itFeb 12, 2023

I’ve been reflecting on the future recently. It seems so open to me right now and the more I reflect, the more ambitious I feel. The problem is, after the initial high, I’m pulled down to earth by the consequences of actually taking action towards that future.

Things like:

• How will I support myself and the people I love?
• Am I actually capable of doing this? Can I handle the problems and uncertainty?
• Can I deal with how others will judge me?
• Will I be ok with the opportunity costs if this leads nowhere?

For my circumstances, I feel like my ideal answer to these questions is yes. Ideal as in: I’m not looking forward to handling these things, but at the end of the day, I think I could deal with it.

But I only actually feel this way on my best days - and that means the chance I’ll naturally decide to take action is slim. After thinking about how to get around this, I’ve found a question that raises my confidence, even on my worst days:

Would my past self find me astounding?

What I mean by astounding is a person who is physically possible for you to become (i.e. it doesn’t violate the laws of physics), but who you didn’t think you could actually become.

An example of this might be becoming the President of your country - it’s physically possible, but (probably) doesn’t feel actually possible. When the probability of something is low enough, we tend to just round it to zero. Then we’re astounded when it happens because we forgot that it was even possible.

I think this question helps my confidence because it reminds me that my past self would find the fact that I’m a software engineer and runner pretty astounding. My past self wouldn’t have believed it was possible to become who I am today.

Why? Part of it was a misunderstanding of the skills that programming requires (it isn’t math).¹ But I think the main reason was a lack of prior evidence - I had zero background in programming and hated anything to do with endurance to feel terrible. My current self didn’t obviously extend from the narrative of my past self, so they couldn’t see a path from A to B.

If belief requires evidence but you don’t have any, what can you do? You do experiments and prove it. If you think you can’t program, learn Python for a month and show me that you can’t implement Tic-Tac-Toe, no matter how hard you try. If you think you can’t run a marathon, sign up, train for a few months, and show me that you actually collapse in the street on race day.² Unless you do that, you don’t have evidence, and neither I nor you should believe you.

Asking whether my past self would find me astounding helps me tap into the evidence I’ve gathered running those experiments myself. Similarly, you’ve probably proven a lot to yourself, but just don’t remember it well. If you find it difficult to be confident about an uncertain future, ask yourself whether your past self would you astounding.

If you find your answer is yes, isn’t it fair to be more confident about taking actions now that seem unreasonable, that don’t fit your narrative, but that might lead to an astounding future?

After all, if you’ve been astounded once, why can’t you be astounded again?