Breaking Free: The Art of Leaving Behind What Holds You Back

If you want to achieve personal growth and success, you will have to leave certain things behind. You may be carrying emotional baggage that weighs you down and prevents your progress. At any time, you may drop these things, never to pick them up again. Freedom is a self-liberation journey only you can give yourself.

You are here on this small, out-of-the-way planet for a short time. For some reason, you were given a life of your own, to live in the way that seems best to you. But because your society and your culture will cause you to live according to what is average, you settle into the comfort of belonging.

The comfort zone is heavier than gravity. It keeps you weighed down until you believe that is the way things are. But occasionally, when you look around and catch a glimpse of a person who seems lighter, happier, more satisfied with their life, you wonder what it would be like to generate the escape velocity needed for personal freedom.

When you’ve lived a certain way long enough, making a significant change may make you feel stressed and anxious. You may also feel the pull toward something better. Even if you don’t quite yet know what it will be, you know it will be different.

Leaving People Behind

When I was young, I ran with the wrong crowd. I was reckless for more years than I care to remember. At 19, I had a premonition that I would die before I was 25 years old. Not wanting to accept that fate, I ended my reckless habits and distanced myself from some of my friends. Some of these friends were upset, and a number accused me of believing I was better than they were, even though I had never said anything like that. Then one day, I told them I believed I was better than they were. At the time, I was not incorrect.

Some of these friends left me behind, one died on a motorcycle while trying to outrun the police carrying a backpack of drugs that would have landed him in prison. Another could have been a running back, but drugs sapped him of any motivation to do anything other than drugs.

This is more difficult in real life than reading these words, but personal growth requires you to leave your toxic relationships.

Leaving Beliefs Behind

You may have beliefs that no longer serve you. When you have lived with a set of beliefs for as long as you can remember, some may be more difficult to extract from your conditioning and the behaviors that are burned into your mind.

You may have finished high school and started college, gotten a formal education, graduated, fell in love, got married, bought a house, had a couple of children, and taught them this is what life is. You are almost certain to share your politics with your parents, even if it takes a couple of decades for you to become more like them. There are good odds you share your parent’s faith tradition. You didn’t make these choices. You were infected with a meme, something we also describe as a virus of the mind, because we infect each other with our ideas.

You may still believe these things, while other things no longer make sense to you. You can explore new beliefs that align with your current self.

Leaving Behind Small Choices

A small decision is to argue with other people who have different beliefs than yours. No doubt, you have family, friends, and neighbors who want to argue about politics. Neither of you are going to change the other’s mind. One way you make an ever smaller choice, the decision to watch the news, as the media has a business model built on feeding the populace with fear and loathing, agitating you and causing you to believe people who share a different political opinion are your enemy.

Leaving Procrastination Behind

As you grow in age, and hopefully, wisdom. There is an old saying that goes: Too fast, old; too slow, wise. If you are relatively young, remember this little piece of wisdom, but my guess is that you will only remember when it is too late. The average life is 78.8 years, but you will live longer than the 4,108 weeks because you are not going to take your own life, nor will you die of a fentanyl overdose.

You should make the most of your life by avoiding procrastination, free and clear, doing whatever it is that strikes your fancy. It doesn’t matter what others think. Let them do what they will do with their days and weeks and months and years. If you have a bucket list, turn this into what you do routinely because it brings you joy and happiness.

You should not leave this newsletter without dropping one of the things you must leave behind that will free you to get ahead. Maybe also make certain you are not handing the baggage to someone else to carry.

—ANTHONY IANNARINO

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P.P.P.S. Tell me what you are leaving behind to get ahead.