Phase 1.1 - The Story You Tell Yourself

We're talking the story you tell yourself. We're talking the anatomy of a unit. We're going to approach this effort honestly.

And map our daily story. Setting up your next unit appointment gets important. So stick around.

All this and more after the break. Welcome, all you beautiful people. We're talking the story you tell yourself.

I'm Nick. That's Eric. We're the Get Good Guys.

And this is the Get Good Guy. Get Good Guys My friends, thank you for being with us. We're here.

We're in the first unit of the guide. And that is the story you tell yourself. Indeed.

What are we trying to achieve here? Mainly, we're trying to examine what kind of stories we tell ourselves on a day to day basis. And maybe even on a long term basis. Yeah, maybe it's a recurring story we comfort ourselves with at times.

And a lot of times we find these stories, I think, are not exactly super conscious stories. They're underlying. Maybe we're not even sure we're telling ourselves these stories all the time.

Or we say it offhandedly or jokingly. But they're often some sort of defense mechanism or safety net for ourselves. And they become a sort of opaque wall behind which we hide the truth of the matter.

And if you're going to undertake an effort like the Get Good Guide, we want to approach it honestly. I think what's important to recognize is that wall hides it. It doesn't matter as much hiding it from other people, but it hides it from yourself.

What the reason behind that story is, the true reason you're hiding it from yourself, and that's difficult. If you don't know the reason or you're not aware of what that reason is, it's really hard to fix. Or really hard to address is a better word.

Really hard to address. We talked about this in the very first inaugural episode. The most crushing practical effect of the greatness trap is the failure to begin.

And it's endemic. It is almost part and parcel of that trap that you just don't start. And so when you're ahead of the game, because you're in Unit 1 of the Guide, you start it.

It can be a little gut-wrenching to examine the story you're telling yourself, but it's a good place to start. Yeah, it's a great place to start. Before we dive into this actual unit, let's talk for a moment about the anatomy of all Get Good Guide units.

Their anatomy is the same. From Unit 1 to Unit 50. And they have sort of two headers and two footers.

So in your upper left you have your title. In your upper right, your objective. And those objectives, we are very, very strict with ourselves.

From a writing standpoint, they have to be ten words or fewer. And no jargon. Yep, absolutely.

This is a no-jargon zone. And I would encourage the listener, if you are a member of the Get Good Galaxy, if you've gone to getgood.guide, you've downloaded the guide, or you've got yourself a print copy, avoid jargon. To use the technical term, Ghostbusters signal with jargon in the middle.

That's it. You're going to envision that. And it's worth recognizing that both the headers and the footers are meant to be seen first and last.

Both first and last. Not left page all the way through, right page all the way through. And so the footers, on the bottom left is your take away.

And that's a space for you to write, ten words or fewer, about what you're taking away having completed the unit. And then the bottom right is arguably the single most important part of any Get Good Guide unit. And that is your next unit appointment.

And this is a date and time at which point you will take on the next unit. Very simple, but very effective. Very, very effective.

It's so easy to let it drift into, oh, I'll do it later. Which might be a story you're telling. Yeah, it may be a story.

Oh, I'm busy. Oh, I'm tired. Oh, I'm... yeah.

Absolutely. And time, as we talked about, and we'll continue to talk about, it is the resource that spends itself, and it is the resource that we all have exactly the same amount of. And no matter how wealthy, how smart, how tall, it doesn't matter.

You all have 168 hours a week. We all have 168 hours a week. If you make the appointment, whatever organizational system maybe you use, use a planner, use a GCal, whatever it is, if you make the appointment, that time is guarded.

And then when you look to schedule other things, it will be there. And you will say, well, I can't do it then because I have an appointment with my next unit. Absolutely.

And that really, that will hold true. The work will fill the time we give it. That's absolutely right.

Absolutely right. And I mean, that's such a big part of avoiding that trap is what the guide helps you do. And then so within a unit, obviously that's where you'll see the differences.

Some units are repeated. Sure. Later in the guide, not so much in phase one.

But there is a similarity, especially when it comes to finding resources. In phase two, obviously we get more repetition, but they are in loops. They're in purposeful loops when they are repeated.

You don't do the same unit four or five times in a row. It's a loop, a repetition of sequence. So let's talk about this unit specifically.

Let's do it. The beginning, story you tell yourself. What is it? We start, we jump right in with a very difficult.

And it's a workbook. This is not a passive experience. The Get Good Guide.

You are here to work. You are here to put in the time. And so a lot of this is questions that you are meant to answer.

Yeah. And we give some examples because it is, I think, to us. We've spent a lot of time, a lot of personal time snuggling up good and close to this guide here.

But we put some examples of stories that are often told. One we often say is, oh, I'm just not that good at that. I've never been good at that thing.

I'm just not good at that. And that's, I mean, it's a fallacy, first of all. But more importantly, it's a defense.

It's a story that you're telling yourself. And that will, oftentimes, the story we tell ourselves is the thing that prevents us from beginning. Right.

And one of the ones I think both of us personally have struggled with a little or experienced is, I'm not worried about winning. I'm just going to have fun. I'm just going to have fun.

Right. We've discovered it's very difficult to do. It's a challenge, right? And later in the guide, we address this at length.

The idea of joyful practice, that's not something that happens on its own. Right. And so you have to be very cognizant of this.

As you go through this first unit, there are a couple of exercises. There's a mapping exercise, which asks you to think about a day, presumably the day that you're working on this, and just map it out. What happened in that day? What were you thinking about? What was going on? And then, what was the story that you told yourself about that day? Yeah.

And I think that's going to really assist in figuring out what these stories that we're telling ourselves are. They can be bigger stories that you'll find repeated throughout your days, but they can be small. They can be surprising.

Oh, I didn't realize I was telling myself this. Or, I didn't realize I was telling myself this so often. The sort of second half of the unit, right? So the first half, they are more reflective exercises.

They're not as directed. And sometimes you'll see that in the units, where you have something that requires reflection but doesn't necessarily immediately drive you to action. But almost always, you will have a driver to action within a unit.

And the driver to action here is this simple question. What are you trying to get good at? And you'll find that the guide very purposefully seeks to help you refine that in phase two, but we start off with getting on it. Dipping your toe in the pool, as it were.

But it's so easy to watch videos and read articles and never begin. And then we go through a couple of important, important questions. Why aren't you good already? That's a challenging question.

It's hard for myself, especially. It's hard for me to answer that one from time to time. And usually the answer, and not surprisingly, is I'm telling myself a story about that thing.

And that's guarding me from either being truthful about why I'm not good at it or guarding me from becoming good at it. There is, I think, oftentimes, maybe we'll get more into this in the Patreon. There is a there's so much fear when it comes to skill acquisition, when it comes to education, when it comes to taking on a challenge that you've never maybe taken on before.

There's so much fear surrounding that. And I think, honestly, some of the greatness trap preachers that preach greatness only and excellence only, they they do they seek to deal with it. They deal with the fear.

But it seems ineffective in many cases. I think sometimes they deal with it by sort of shouting. Sort of like motivational phrases or whatever.

When in actuality, there are tactics to deploy. There are methods to overcome that fear. Hoping you're motivated by looking at a poster is fine.

That's fine. But there's a better way. A more efficient, B, fewer resources, including time.

The most important of all resources. And C, it's more joyful. Being shouted at, not great.

It's not great. It's not the best. And it goes through a few other brief questions about other people who maybe you see as good in the skill.

And these sorts of things. And ends with perhaps one of our better sentences, I think, in the guide. Which is to say, one of the ways that you know that you're good at something is when you stop telling yourself that story.

We both love this unit. I think more than we planned at the beginning. And we revisit these stories throughout the guide.

You'll revisit this story that you will place on this page. And you'll discover new stories along the way. Absolutely.

Absolutely. Well, friends, appreciate you taking the time. We are at our assigned mark.

And we've got, I think, a pretty good idea of the story you tell yourself. The first unit in the Get Good Guide. Indeed, my friend.

Indeed we are. Well, we'll see you at the outro. Thank you so much, everyone, for taking the time.

The most valuable of all the resources. We do appreciate it. And you have our Get Good gratitude.

If you want to check out the guide itself, you can find it at getgood.guide. And if you want a little bit more of this content, by all means, we invite you over to the Patreon. We do appreciate all the Get Good Gold members for their support of the Get Good Galaxy and all the efforts we and so many people are making. That's over at patreon.com slash getgoodguide.

As always, I'm Eric. That's Nick. We're the Get Good Guys.

And this is the Get Good Guide. Story time. Are you telling yourself a story? Have you mapped the anatomy of a unit? Oldilocks begins with G. That's a good-looking unit.

With a good gurnel.

Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai