Book: Clear Thinking, 2. Building Strength

/ October 6, 2024

The Goal of This Post

In this post, I share some of my favorite passages from the book Clear Thinking, by Shane Parrish.

In this post:

  • Self-Accountability
  • Self-Knowledge
  • Self-Control
  • Self-Confidence

—

Build Strength

Strength is the power to press pause on your defaults and exercise good judgment.

  • Self-Accountability:
    Holding yourself accountable for developing your abilities, managing your inabilities, and using reason to govern your actions

  • Self-Knowledge:
    Knowing your own strengths and weaknesses, what you’re capable of doing and what you’re not

  • Self-Control:
    Mastering your fears, desires and emotions

  • Self-Confidence:
    Trusting in your abilities and value to others.

—

Self-Accountability

SELF-ACCOUNTABILITY MEANS TAKING RESPONSIBILITY for your abilities, your inabilities, and your actions.

  • You can hold yourself accountable.
  • You can expect more from yourself.
  • There is always something you can do in the moment today to better your position tomorrow.

The path to being exceptional begins when you decide to be responsible for your actions no matter the situation.

—

Self-Knowledge

SELF-KNOWLEDGE IS ABOUT KNOWING YOUR OWN STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES.

  • Having a sense of your knowledge’s boundaries.
  • It’s about knowing when you’re vulnerable to your defaults.
  • Knowing about your strengths and weaknesses, your abilities and their limits, is essential to counteracting your defaults.

You must know what you can do and what you can’t; your powers and limitations, your strengths and vulnerabilities, what’s in your control and what isn’t.

—

Self-Control

SELF-CONTROL IS THE ABILITY TO MASTER YOUR FEARS, DESIRES, AND OTHER EMOTIONS.

  • Self-control is about creating space for reason instead of just blindly following instincts.
  • It’s about putting distance between yourself and your emotions.
  • Self-control is about realizing that you have the power to determine how you respond to them.

A large part of achieving success is having the self-control to do whatever needs to be done, regardless of where you feel like doing it at the moment. Emotional intensity is far less important in the long run than disciplined consistency. Inspiration and excitement might get you going, but persistence and routine are what keep you going until you reach your goals.

—

Self-Confidence

SELF-CONFIDENCE IS ABOUT TRUSTING IN YOUR ABILITIES AND YOUR VALUE TO OTHERS.

  • You need self confidence to think independently and to stand firm in the face of social pressure, ego, inertia or emotion.
  • Confident people have the strength to admit weaknesses and vulnerabilities.
  • Self-confidence is also the strength to accept hard truths. We all have to deal with the world as it is, not as we want it to be.

Self-confidence is the strength to focus on what’s right instead of who’s right. It’s the strength to face reality. It’s the strength to admit mistakes, and the strength to change your mind. Self-confidence is what it takes to be on the right side of right. Outcome over ego.

One Last Takeaway. Raise the Bar.

“THE FIRST STEP TO BUILDING ANY OF YOUR STRENGTHS IS RAISING THE STANDARDS TO WHICH YOU HOLD YOURSELF.

Look around, find the best examples you can of people with attributes you want to cultivate – the people whose default behavior is your desired behavior, those who inspire you to raise the bar and make you want to be a better version of yourself.”

All content credit goes to the author. I have shared the bits I enjoyed the most and found most useful.

Cheers ’till next time! Saludos!
Alberto

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