Give Yourself Permission to Suck
Kill Your Inner Loser | December 12, 2019 | by Andy
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This is the very first article I’ve published on here, and there’s
a reason for that. At 9.37pm today, I gave myself a challenge:

_Write an entire article in 1 hour._
[Post image] It’s go time. 
I, like a tonne of other people, have a serious issue with
_perfectionist thinking._ I procrastinate working on my goals, I put
off taking that first step, because I obsess about whether or not I
can do a _perfect job_ of something… instead of just doing it. I
look at the long road ahead of me, the amount of steps between where I
am now and where I want to be, and I worry I’ll never get there. So
instead of getting started, _I end up doing nothing at all._

I’ve done this a tonne in the past. I wanted to do a _365
Photography Project_ (taking a photo every single day for 365 days in
a row), but put it off for months because I was paranoid my photos
weren’t quite good enough yet.

I put off going to the gym for years, instead opting to buy a home gym
and muck around for a _year_, making no progress. I was worried I was
too weak to step foot in the gym, worried I wouldn’t know how to do
the exercises, worried I’d do a bad job. And then when I finally did
go to the gym, I put off hiring a weightlifting coach for another year
– again, because I was worried I’d do a bad job choosing a coach.

I put off talking to girls for _seven months_ after finishing an
“approach anxiety program”
[https://www.goodlookingloser.com/anxiety/program] because I was
terrified I’d do a poor job of literally just talking to other human
beings.

I put off getting a tattoo for _over a year_, because I was terrified
I’d never find the “perfect” design, or find the “perfect”
tattoo artists.

I put off losing weight for ages before finally diving in, because I
was obsessed with researching the “perfect” weight loss diet,
researching the “perfect” gym program, figuring out which was the
“perfect” calorie-counting app, etc… Spinning my wheels instead
of, you know, _actually losing weight._

Pretty much every big goal I’ve ever achieved was preluded by
days/weeks/months of procrastination, because I was obsessing about
perfection rather than just _starting._
[Post image]Everyone sucks, most of the time.
So how’d I stop the procrastination and end up achieving things?

BY GIVING MYSELF PERMISSION TO SUCK.

With my photography, I just sat down one day, and said “Ok. Today is
Day 1 of my 365 project
[https://www.flickr.com/photos/amwbonfire/albums/72157635489548458].
I’m going to be awful, my photos will suck for a while, but if I
don’t start now I’ll _never_ start.”

With girls, I told myself “I’m going to be awful at talking to
girls. I’ll be nervous, anxious, I’ll probably throw up out of
nervousness, I’ll forget what to say, I’ll stumble and lose my
words, I’ll look like a complete creep and I’ll make a total fool
of myself. No girls will like me and I’ll be a total failure. But
that’s ok. I’m allowed to be shit at this, because everybody is
shit when they’re first getting started.”

With the gym I told myself “I’ll be the weakest guy in here,
there’s no doubt about that. I don’t know how to do the exercises,
I might even injure myself, but all that is fine. I’m allowed to be
awful at this, because everybody is at the start.” And the tattoo
– today I went in and booked a session to finally get a tattoo done
next week.

Even writing articles for this site. I’ve put off making my own site
for _ages_ (months and months, maybe even a year) because I wanted
my first article to be _perfect_. I have hundreds of ideas for
articles, guides, rants, etc… but every time I start typing, I get
in my own way and worry “this won’t be good enough, you can’t
release this, it’s not _perfect.” _I worry what I’ve written
isn’t good enough, isn’t long enough, is too long, doesn’t have
enough pictures, has too many pictures, isn’t concise enough, is too
verbose, has too many spelling errors, etc. I worry about what
“direction” this site should have, what “voice” I should give
my writing, what topics I should cover, how in-depth my guides should
be, etc.

I had to set a goal of writing 10 articles in 1 month, otherwise I’d
never start. (This is the first article). And I’ve had to tell
myself “It’s ok if this isn’t your best work. It’s ok if you
could have done better. Just start writing, start posting, _and
you’ll improve over time.”_
[Post image]One Small Step for Man…
It’s funny, because I can _easily_ give that advice to other
people. I tell mates who’ve just started hitting on girls, ‘It
doesn’t matter how terrible you are at this – it’s ok to be
awful. Just start doing it.” I’ve told people who start taking
photos for their Tinder profiles, “You’ll be AWFUL at this at
first. That’s ok. Just take hundreds, thousands of photos and
you’ll eventually take some good ones.”

But like most people, I give great advice to others, but often don’t
take the advice myself…

I’m sitting here right now re-reading this article, thinking of 50
things I should add to it, 20 ways I can improve it, all the
paragraphs I should cut out and all the ways I should rewrite them.
But fuck it. I’M GIVING MYSELF PERMISSION TO SUCK. I’m
hitting _Publish._

The time is now:
[Post image]
So I succeeded. I wrote this article in (much) less than an hour. If
it sucks, I don’t care.

At least now I’ve finally gotten started.

——

UPDATE 2021: Here’s a follow-up to this article:

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[Yo, Andy here. I’m an Aussie guy who went from a depressed,
suicidal loser to a guy who gets laid regularly, has 3somes & BDSM
sex, crushes weights at the gym & loves his life. I killed my inner
loser. It's my mission to get you to kill your inner loser too.]
[https://killyourinnerloser.com/my-transformation/] 

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