Admitting your problems is not enough.

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Candidate,

How many of these lies have you heard before?

LIE #1: Parents telling their kids that they can be anything they want (even kids who never built the discipline to finish their homework)
LIE #2: TV "experts" — and even the government! — telling us that buying a house is the best investment
LIE #3: Our friends telling us to "be yourself" and people will be attracted to you — totally neglecting the part about improving yourself so you're attracting the right people

I won't BS you. You might not like what I have to say, and I might make you uncomfortable enough to unsubscribe (which is fine with me). But I'll always tell you the truth.

Over the years, I've received hundreds of thousands of emails from people who ask me for advice. You know what's interesting?

A lot of people tell me their deepest problems — "I can't follow through," "I don't know how to deal with my unsupportive family," "I think I'm incapable of starting something new since I'm so afraid of failure" — and I answer a lot of them by email.

But a lot of them CLEARLY knew what their problem was. They obviously think about it every day, and they're quite adept at knowing exactly what's holding them back. So I write back with 8 words:

"So what? What are you going to do?"

90% of them never write back.

HEY YOU WEIRDOS. ADMITTING YOUR PROBLEM IS NOT ENOUGH. THAT'S THE EASY PART. WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO ABOUT IT?

You sitting there and saying "I'm really lazy" doesn't accomplish anything. Anyone can admit their problem. That's the BEGINNING of the process. It takes real work to actually start the hard work of fixing it.

For example, you'll never hear a Top Performer say they're "overwhelmed."

Someone using that word is effectively raising their hand and saying "I'm not a Top Performer and I'm probably not going to do the thing I'm complaining about."

Like anyone, Top Performers get overwhelmed. But if you listen closely to how they describe their challenges, they always add something to the end of their sentence: "Yeah, I'm swamped right now, and it's overwhelming...but I started waking up 30 minutes earlier so I can answer emails before my family wakes up."

In other words, IT'S NOT ENOUGH TO JUST ACKNOWLEDGE YOUR PROBLEM. You have to DO something about it.

Here's the good news: You can change the way you think about yourself. If you're a chronic "non-finisher," I can show you how to change that. Just imagine how it would feel to stop calling yourself "lazy" or "unmotivated" and to know that when you say you're going to do something, you'll actually do it.

A while back, I got this email from a reader:

If you're overwhelmed with too many to-dos and too many options, follow Ramit's Rules of Letting Go:

Let go of "should dos" that you don't actually care about: In the scheme of all the things you want to do, do you really care about this? When I went to my cousin's wedding in India, I saw one of my friends order his food in fluent Hindi, and I thought, "Hmm...I should take Hindi lessons." But when I got back to NYC, I put it on my to-do list, only to skip over it for months. The truth is, I really didn't care enough to do anything. It wasn't important enough. When I acknowledged I wasn't going to do it and crossed it off my list, I could focus on actually doing the things I wanted to do.

Let go of feeling guilty: STOP LYING TO YOURSELF! Do you really care about learning how to kiteboard? Or is it just because that random guy you met told you how fun it was, and you said, "Yeah, I need to do that"? Life is short. It's OK to use this exact script: "That sounds really interesting, but I've decided not to tackle that right now so I can focus on a couple other things I want to do this year." Nobody is making you feel guilty except YOU. We realistically have the time to learn maybe three new major things per year. Do you really want this to be one of them?

Let go of waiting for inspiration to strike: Inspiration is for amateurs. I wake up every morning, rain or shine, feeling great or sore, and I get to work. Not because I'm a machine, or a better person than anyone, but because I have systems that I depend on — not willpower or inspiration.

The emailer above, Cristina, says she wants to find a new job. Really? Let's see how she describes her job hunt: "I was in 'I hate my job' mood, so I applied..."

Her own language betrays her. Depending on a "mood" or "inspiration" is what dilettantes, unemployed Brooklyn writers, and unprofitable life coaches (redundant?) do.

Waiting for inspiration to strike is a quick way to randomly pursue something, then give up, only to yo-yo back a couple weeks later, eventually leading you to hate yourself.

Instead of depending on fleeting motivation, build a SYSTEM. This means you work through the steps of finding a new job, add it to your calendar every week, and make sure you have the time and mental energy (which are much easier once you know what to do). If Cristina were serious, she would know that I cover all of this in my Dream Job program.

Here's an example of a system:

Look at this one:

This is a random to-do that I would normally put in the back of my head...and it would never get done. Instead, I added it to my calendar so it always gets done. Advanced tip: You can set up weekly, monthly, and quarterly "to-dos" for things like reviewing your systems, planning an annual negotiation, or even checking in on your relationship.

These are some of the tactics you can use to conquer laziness and procrastination. But they barely scratch the surface of the full arsenal of tools I use.

* * *

If you want to see the full system I use to follow through — including the deeper, psychological strategies — I have a course called The Finisher's Formula.

You can check it out here for the full details. I'll talk to you tomorrow, where I'll tell you more.

P.S. You know how I normally ask you to respond and send me your questions? I don't want you to email me today.

I want you to sit quietly for 30 seconds and think about what it would mean to actually FINISH what you start. To know that you could commit to things and TRUST yourself to follow through. How would it feel? What would it mean to your life? Think about it — because tomorrow, before noon, I'll email you about Finisher's Formula.