The Biggest Lie in Self-Help
The biggest lie in self-help: that you can have it all.
Perfect body, perfect relationship, million-dollar business — all at the same time, all at peak performance.
Here's what actually happens when you try to excel at everything: You excel at nothing. You become a mediocre jack-of-all-trades, drowning in your own ambition.
You become what you focus on. And if you focus on everything, you become nothing.
But What About Balance?
It's true — you should not completely forego all balance. If you focus exclusively on one area of life at the expense of all others, there will be a massive price to pay.
You might become the richest person in town, but if you never work out or neglect all your social ties, you will still be miserable. Some things are so essential to human existence, they should not be ignored.
So how do you combine those two truths? How do you make sure that your most important project receives extraordinary attention — while ensuring at least minimum balance, so your life doesn't spiral out of control?
The Three Core Areas
First, there are only three areas of life you need to balance: health, wealth, and relationships.
Sure, there are other aspects of life — but these are the big three. Get them under control, and you'll already have a pretty good life.
The model I propose (which I stole from a coaching client of mine): Be okay at two, and excellent at one.
This leaves us with three permutations:
Health-centric: Fitness excellent, relationships okay, wealth okay
Relationship-centric: Love and friendship excellent, health okay, wealth okay
Wealth-centric: Bank balance excellent, health okay, relationships okay
That’s the basic menu of options.
The Bleeding-Over Effect
This isn't as unappealing as it might sound. There's something I call the bleeding-over effect: if you become excellent in one of the three core areas, it sooner or later spills over into the other two.
For example, if you become a superstar athlete, you'll likely have more options in the dating market — thanks to your public profile, celebrity status, and the attractive personality traits developed through training.
It will also boost your financial life, as sponsors approach you and other driven individuals want to work with you. It's no coincidence that many superstar athletes become highly successful entrepreneurs, too.
Excellence bleeds over. Still, you should at least develop “fair value” in your non-excellent areas — if just to bridge the gap until the bleeding-over happens.
The Energy Point System
Think of your daily energy as 10 points. Distribute them like this:
6–8 points to your primary obsession (the area where you want excellence)
1–2 points each to the other two areas (just enough to avoid complete collapse)
Let’s say you want to get rich. You start your own business, work your butt off, put in long days and seven-day weeks. But to make this sustainable, you still need minimal attention to health and relationships. Maybe that means keeping a weekly date night with your partner, and walking 45 minutes to work each day. Nothing extreme — just enough to keep going without burning out.
This is the main reason not to completely abandon two of the three areas: Most people who try will eventually burn out. They won't be able to sustain their core effort — and will end up accomplishing nothing.
What the Alternatives Look Like
Are there some people who can completely focus on just one thing? It seems so. History is full of high performers who went all in on a single pursuit and ignored everything else. Think of Vincent van Gogh, Nikola Tesla, or Bobby Fischer.
But here's the pattern: many of them died young, went crazy, or ended up deeply depressed. That's a very high price to pay — even to become one of the world's greatest in your field.
Another common thread among these people is substance abuse. I recommend the book Daily Rituals by Mason Currey — many of its case studies show how single-minded individuals often relied heavily on alcohol or drugs to keep going. These stimulants often cut their lives short or at least massively reduced their quality of life.
Can it be done? Yes, some people can pull it off. Is it something to aim for? I would argue not. You'll likely find more joy in being “regular” excellent — in the top 5% of your field — while still keeping at least a basic life outside your chosen specialization.
What cannot be done, however, is becoming excellent at everything.
Many people will intellectually acknowledge this, but then try to do everything at an equally high, unsustainable level anyway. They're kidding themselves. This leads to the same cycle: they burn out, abandon all efforts, take a break, and then start again—only to repeat the pattern.
“Okay at two and excellent at one” is a recipe for realism. It acknowledges that our energy is limited — and that, no matter how much we wish otherwise, we simply cannot excel at everything.
Make no mistake — being good at two and excellent at one is already hard enough to pull off. If you truly commit to it, you'll quickly see how challenging it is.
I observe this every day in my coaching practice. The first reality check clients regularly go through: “Oh, I cannot be excellent at everything.” The second reality check: “Oh, being just excellent at one and okay at two is still very hard.”
Cut the Time-Wasting
How do you then succeed at being okay at two and excellent at one? The most important step: cut out all the time-wasting.
We spend hours each day on social media, watching Netflix, and consuming the news. Some statistics suggest the average American spends 12 hours a day on this stuff. Yes — twelve hours.
Your best chance of accomplishing your goals is to cut out these time-wasting activities and reclaim those hours.
To be clear — this is extremely difficult. We are, at this point, addicted to media consumption, just as much as to alcohol or hard drugs. Weaning yourself off media will take time, probably several months. But it's one of the highest-leverage changes you can make.
If I could only prescribe one behavioral adaptation to coaching clients, it would be this one. Cutting out all time-wasting opens the door to true productivity — and, eventually, excellence.
The Formula
To sum up: our resources are limited. You cannot excel in all three major areas of life at the same time. You must choose one to become excellent at, and be okay with running the other two in maintenance mode.
And even then, you still have to cut out all the time-wasting junk and endure the cold-turkey period.
I realize that this is not a sexy formula. It will never be able to compete with the grand self-help lie of “You can have it all!” But it’s the unsexy formula that actually works.
As you probably guessed — I was the original sucker for “You can have it all.” I chased that promise for many years before it finally dawned on me that it might not be attainable. So, as preachy as some of these newsletters might sound, they’re really just reminders to myself.
Anyway. Still pondering my next travel destination. I have been going back and forth so many times, I'm slightly embarrassed to keep mentioning it. But the current favorite is Bulgaria — I might actually do a snowy winter for once; there are mountains. I can't really go skiing because of my knee, but proper winter hikes in the snow sound amazing too. We'll see.
Talk soon!
Niels