You Do You

All ya can do is do what you must
You do what you must do and ya do it well -Bob Dylan, song “Buckets Of Rain”

“Comparison is the thief of joy.” -Teddy Roosevelt

“Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.” -Arthur Ashe

All you can do is what you can do. Right here. Right now. Nothing more. Nothing less. Feel good about that. And don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.

Former NBA player and author Paul Shirley in his excellent book The Process Is The Product writes about being intimidated by other people’s stated workout routines or study habits. He tried to emulate these routines and when he fell short, he felt less than.

That is, until he found out that those purported routines and habits were bullshit. No one was doing what they said they were doing. They were just insecure and concocted a story to make themselves feel better.

He writes in the book…

And I’d like to say that the truth hit me at one of these moments, but it didn’t come to me so suddenly. I needed more evidence. Like, the next five years’ worth of evidence—five years that saw me go from college basketball walk-on to future NBA basketball player while also managing a degree in mechanical engineering.

Here’s what I figured out:

Those guys who’d come to talk to us at those basketball camps back in Kansas? They hadn’t been shooting a thousand shots a day. That strength coach who’d sent me that workout? He didn’t think anyone would actually do it. That dude who told us how much we were going to have to study at freshman orientation? He wasn’t spending 32 hours in the library every week. More important: no one was shooting a thousand shots or finishing torture workouts or studying for 32 hours every week. Or, honestly, doing anything they said they were doing.

So what was going on here? Why had all these people done this? Were they straight-up liars?

Kind of, but not really.

These people had told themselves the same story. In this story, they were the almighty, accomplished heroes. They were special, different, unique, and they wanted us to know it. They didn’t necessarily do this to scare us, although that might have been part of it. They did it because they were insecure about their place in the world. They needed to believe they’d done something other people couldn’t.

And you know what?

Fuck those guys.

Here’s what I’d like to tell that kid in Kansas—the one with the big dreams about far-flung places:

To accomplish what you’d like to accomplish, you don’t need to be special or talented. You don’t need to take expensive classes or hire fancy coaches. You don’t need to quit jobs or go on expensive sabbaticals. You don’t need to shoot a thousand shots or study 32 hours or lift everything in the weight room. Instead, keep those big dreams. Figure out a path to those dreams. Then fall in love with that path, committing to it so fully that you forget what your dreams even were.

And that, my young friend, is exactly when those dreams will come true.

You do you.

Just do the best you can today, and tomorrow and the day after that. Keep evaluating your progress. Keep learning from the feedback that life gives you. Keep iterating your process. Because it’s all process.

Believe in yourself.

Drip by drip.

Day after day.

You’ll make it happen.