imaginary birdcages

This little email is a reminder to question the limits you place on yourself.

Often these limits make no sense:

It’s so easy to get trapped in these unhelpful, imaginary belief cages.

Let me give you a recent example from my life…

I’ve had this long-standing belief that I could only write in the morning.

The wee hours of the AM have always been my sacred writing time.

After 10 am, I somehow lost my chance to write that day. I had to wait until the next morning.

This didn’t become a problem until I started this newsletter.

Before then, I only had to write stuff for my main marketing agency business.

I would write emails, sales letters, and other things that made money.

Suddenly, I had another thing to write in the morning that didn’t make money (yet).

My unpaid writing time was cutting into my paid writing time.

I didn’t mind at first, but then internal conflict started to creep in…

When working, you want to avoid this kind of mental friction.

Mental friction is what transforms work into toil.

My dad always said that work is easy. It’s the negative stories you attach to it that make it hard.

Your current work activity should feel like the right thing, right now.

If not, you won’t feel good. You must change.

Writing this newsletter in the morning did not feel like the right thing. It did not feel good.

So I started to write it at night.

Turns out I can write a shite-ton at night as well. Who knew lol.

It’s 7 pm and I’m ripping this thing like nobody's business.

Now, this story may seem trivial, but there's a good lesson here.

The lesson lies in how long it took to question my limitation.

It took me 6 friggen months of morning writing to even consider writing at any other time.

It reminds me of this Alex Hormozi quote:

“We question our beliefs, except for those we truly believe. Those, we never think to question.”

How many unhelpful beliefs do we hold, and for how long have we held them?

Lots. Plus, the older we get, the more ingrained these beliefs become.

This is why we must question early and question often.

Why not do a little questioning right now?

Here’s a list of false beliefs to get you started:

"I need a quiet environment to be productive."

"I don’t like delegating because no one can do it as well as me."

"I don’t have the energy to work out after a long day."

"I need inspiration to hit before I start creating."

"I’ll never be fluent in another language—it’s too late for me."

"I can’t travel alone; it’s too risky."

"I can’t host events or gatherings because it’s too much pressure.”

"I can’t start a blog or YouTube channel because I’m not confident on camera."

Another way to uncover self-imposed limits is to do more stuff.

That's what happened with this newsletter.

I didn't want to do it in the morning, but I had to get it done. So I did it at night.

I stepped out of that imaginary cage and have many more to go.

You do too.

See you next week 🫡 

If you found this post helpful/entertaining or know someone who would, I’d love if you could share it with them and invite them to subscribe:

https://www.entreflaneur.com/p/imaginary-birdcages

Cool things I found during my weekly internet stroll.

Incredible application of AI. This AI phone agent wastes scammers’ time by keeping them on the phone as long as possible.

One of the most unique pieces of writing I have ever seen. Strong language warning. :)

Served up by Spijker & me.

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