How We Sabotage Our Lives (Article Read-Along)

This article I came across had a refreshing perspective on the psychology behind how we stop ourselves from reaching our goals and how we kid ourselves (cómo nos engañamos) when it comes to actually changing things in our lives. With New Year's resolutions around the corner, what better time to reflect on how we're holding ourselves back.

I thought it was a fun article to read together because of the way it's written. It's as if your friend was talking to you, giving you a no-bullsh*t take on things. I really enjoyed it, and there's a bunch of great vocabulary and expressions that we'll talk about along the way. Hope you like it, and if you do, share it with a friend ✌️

Transcript

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Hey, what's up? What's going on? Welcome to another episode of English with Dane, a podcast designed to make you enjoy the process of improving your English. As always, I'm your host Dane, and you can find me on Instagram and TikTok at English with Dane. Today, I have a super relevant article for this time of the year. We are approaching New Year's Day, a time where we set expectations for the following year and where we have a list of things we want to accomplish. It's a weird time for me because I tend to put too much pressure on myself when it comes to resolutions, and I end up shooting myself in the foot with overambitious life changes I tell myself I need to make. Some of you won't last 30 seconds, because why would you? This is stupid and it hurts. We'll come back to that in a moment. Now, let's say you want to help somebody quit smoking. Which do you think would be more effective of these two? A. Showing them a scare tactic ad talking about why they need to quit, photos of tumors on diseased lungs, all that shit. B. Showing them a video full of good advice about how to quit, including tons of helpful tips to walk them through it. Quote, by day three, you'll have the urge to use a crutch to cope with the nicotine withdrawal. Don't. Which one do you think works? The second one, right? The first is just manipulative bullshit. The second is imparting actual helpful knowledge. But you're wrong. A recent study found the why ads made a huge difference in helping people quit, where the how ads did nothing whatsoever. Here's the reason, and this is crucial because a huge portion of the modern economy is hoping you don't figure this out. No one who wants to change their habits fails because they don't know how to do it. No one. See, if they want to do it bad enough, figuring out how is nothing more than a trivial first step. And with most things, the method is unimportant. That's why diet fads, modas, diet fads, fads spelled F-A-D-S, that's why diet fads come and go every few months, and we never stumble across the one magical method that works better than all the others. To stumble across means doparse, okay? That's why fads come and go every few months, and we never stumble across the one magical method that works better than all the others. The method is never the issue. We just focus on it to hide the fact that we don't really want to do it. I know a guy who lost 40 pounds on Atkins. No, you know a guy who wanted to lose weight bad enough that he was willing to tightly regulate what he ate every day. If he'd chosen to just cut calories, that would have worked too. Seguimos. Another quote. By day three, you'll have the urge to use a crutch to cope with the pizza withdrawal. Don't. Allow me to illustrate with a particularly ridiculous example, the fitness industry. Exercise machines are a$4.5 billion industry, treadmills are the top seller, and health clubs account for another$27 billion. How many of those people paid the money because they convinced themselves this would be the thing that would finally turn them into the type of person who exercises? Here's a hint. Two-thirds of people with gym memberships never go. It's not just a lie that we're telling ourselves, it's a ridiculous lie. A toddler could see through it. To see through a lie, by the way, is to see that it is bullshit, basically. If someone is a bad liar, you see right through their lies. Seguimos. You know damned well that it doesn't require one penny's worth of equipment to get in shape. You can do every single necessary exercise on your floor right now in the nude. Remember when you were sitting on your invisible motorcycle and your thighs screamed for you to stop after like one minute? That searing pain in your legs is the same thing you'll feel with a thousand dollar elliptical machine. I just gave it to you for free. But that was incredibly tedious and painful. I don't want to spend every day doing things like that. I know. Me neither. So stop fooling yourself. Searing pain, by the way, is just a way to say a burning, intolerable pain. Sear is a verb that we usually use for meat, which I think translates to seyer when you cook the outside part of a steak, for example. Let's keep going. Now try this. Go back to that invisible motorcycle pose again. Only this time, hire a stranger to point a gun at your skull with instructions to blow your brains out unless you double your previous time. Pretend it's a Sons of Anarchy episode or something. You'll do it no problem. You'll blast through all of those impossible to tolerate pain thresholds like the Kool-Aid Man. See, because now the why is taken care of, you're doing it so you don't get shot. So here's the secret: the thing that has been plainly obvious all along. Those people out there who are accomplishing great things and seem to get 50 hours worth of work done every day, they're doing it because they have a gun pointed to their head. An imaginary gun pressed against their temple all day, every day. Number four, not thinking about what part of you will die. What I hate about articles like this is that they're always trying to guilt you into bettering yourself. What are you doing sitting on your sofa eating ice cream, you lazy bag of Dorito farts? Get off your ass and go become the high-achiev Superman you know you can be. That pisses me off because I know exactly why I'm on the sofa eating ice cream. It's because I've had a hard day and this makes me feel better, so fuck you. Even if what I'm doing is a frivolous waste of time, I'm doing it for a reason. Superman can eat shit. I'm eating mocha fudge. But that is another thing that almost everyone ignores when trying to fix something in their life, and it will always come back to bite them. Si algo comes back to bite you is como que te juega una mala pasada. Let's stick with the theme and say you decide to get in shape. If you're already an athlete, replace it with learn to speak Japanese or whatever. Let's say you're going to take up running. You've read the above entry, so you've picked one that doesn't cost anything, unless you don't already own shoes. You figure you'll run around the park every morning and motivate yourself with the knowledge that you're going to lose weight, you're going to have more energy, you're going to feel better, and it won't cost a dime. And when you steal yourself for this task, cuando te endureces, steal as in acero con doble e, when you steal yourself for this task, you anticipate most of it fairly easily. You know you're going to sweat, you know you're going to be sore, but what will trip you up, lo que te barra lendizar, what will trip you up and make you quit isn't any of that. It's the one thing you didn't think about. What you lose by running. Because what you will lose is whatever you were going to do instead of running. And whether you know it or not, every single thing you're doing right now is valuable to you. But I spent two hours yesterday staring at my ceiling and making fart noises with my mouth. Right, but you did it for a reason. You were feeling some need. Maybe it's just stress relief, I don't know. But I know that you did it because in that moment you didn't want to do anything else. So our runner says, I'll run in the mornings before work. Okay, so you're getting up two hours earlier than you are now. You don't need that two hours of sleep? I beg to differ. If you're sleeping, you need it. That's how it works. I'll just go to bed earlier. Okay, so what have you been doing during those late night hours? Hanging out with friends, browsing the internet, watching TV, reading a book, whatever it is, you'll miss it. It sounds obvious like most of the things I say, but I literally never hear people phrase it this way. Everybody takes on a project and expresses it as a pure addition to their life. It's, I've decided I'm finally going to learn the saxophone instead of I've decided I'm going to learn the saxophone instead of hanging out with my girlfriend. Now go find the most successful person you know. Talk to them about their average week and listen closely to what they don't have. They either don't have friends or kids or hobbies or they don't keep up with pop culture or something that you actually consider very valuable to your own life. Their day is only 24 hours long, just like yours. There is no such thing as adding to it, just sacrificing one thing for another. This is why the stop wasting your time and go improve your life, maggot method doesn't work. You're fooling yourself if you think you can find a bunch of extra time by drawing from a pool of hours you're wasting right now. It doesn't exist. Instead, you have to make the cold calculation that you're going to do this instead of that. I'm going to go back to finish my degree instead of spending time with my friends. I'm going to spend more time with my partner and less time working, understanding that this will make me poorer. I'm going to climb a mountain and neglect my family while I train. Otherwise, it's no different from planning a budget that assumes you'll have twice as much money as you actually make. If you want to become a different person, part of it is deciding which parts of you need to die. The next part is number three, pretending you'll magically become someone else. I recently wrote this 60-second quiz that I would encourage everyone to go try if they haven't already. If you don't like clicking on links, I'll give you a spoiler. Every coward imagines they'll be brave. You get the idea. If you spend a good part of today playing iPhone games, then 10 years from now, you'll be a person who's super good at iPhone games, or as good as your wallet will allow you to be. That's not a judgment, there are worse things to be. But the point is, if you're kind of a laid-back, low energy type today, you're not going to suddenly turn into a superhuman dynamo next year or the year after unless you start doing meth or something. If you have anger issues today, you'll have them 10 years from now. If you don't know kung fu today, you won't know it in 2035. But if you're learning kung fu today, well, then we've got something. But I do want to learn Kung Fu, I just don't have time. Nope. Stop. Don't make me backtrack. If you had the gun to your head, you'd goddamn well find the time. If you can't make yourself start in the next 24 hours, you wouldn't do it even if you had 24 lifetimes. Bueno. But we're going to leave it here for today. Next episode will feature the last two ways in which we sabotage ourselves. But like I said in the intro, I don't want to overwhelm you with vocabulary and I don't want you to tire yourself out too much. So we're going to leave it here and we'll finish it next time. I hope you're liking it so far. I thought it was a fun read and honestly a pretty refreshing way to think about the goals that we set for ourselves and how we often kid ourselves. To kid means enganar, okay? That's where kidding comes from, to kid. So yeah, I hope you got something from that, and I hope it helps you figure out how you want to go about or approach any goals that you might have for the upcoming year. Let me know if you enjoy these article read-along episodes, because I really like putting them together for you. I think they're a fun way to practice and also a nice deviation from English learning-based themes. As always, if you like this episode, share it with someone you think would also enjoy it, and don't be shy to share your feedback, whether it's in the comments section of the episode itself, or in the form of an impromptu message on Instagram, TikTok, or even in the form of an email. You know I always love to hear from you guys, and that I greatly value and appreciate your feedback, positive or not. Alright, talk soon. Have a great week. Later.