Refrain
There's a story often attributed to Warren Buffett that has stuck with me for years.
The story goes that Buffett asked his personal pilot to write down the 25 things he most wanted to accomplish in his life. Once the list was complete, Buffett told him to circle the five that mattered most. After doing so, the pilot now had two lists: his top five priorities and the remaining twenty things he still hoped to accomplish someday.
Buffett then asked him what he planned to do with the other twenty.
The pilot explained that they were still important. They just weren't as important as the top five. They would become the things he worked on when he had extra time. They would remain goals, just not the primary ones.
According to the story, Buffett told him he was looking at it the wrong way. Those twenty items weren't a secondary list. They were an avoidance list. Something to stay away from at all cost. Choosing what to pursue is important.
Choosing what to refrain from may matter even more.
I’ve found certain things that I do my best to refrain from. Not so much in the context of pursuing success, like I mentioned above, but more in reference to becoming the best version of myself. They may seem like a random assortment of things, but they are patterns I fight against because they make a significant difference for me.
Refrain from:
Dodging the feels
A lot of people do not process what they feel. They delay it, numb it, explain it away, or stay busy enough to avoid it. That may help in the short term, but avoided emotion does not disappear. It shows up later in how we react, how we disconnect, and how we carry tension into places it does not belong.
Feeling something honestly is often the first step toward understanding what is really going on. Healing is done through feeling. So much of how we respond and make decisions today is rooted in unprocessed emotions. Taking the time to work through those will change you in a big way.
Forgetting what you’ve achieved
When someone is discouraged, they tend to develop selective memory. They can remember the miss, the delay, the embarrassment, and the uncertainty. They struggle to remember what they have already built, survived, learned, and carried.
That kind of forgetting distorts identity. It leaves people talking to themselves as if they have no proof of resilience, when their own life says otherwise. You have done hard things and it's important to use that as a frame of reference to your current reality. Lean on your past to remind yourself of what you're capable of.
Speaking in absolutes
I used to speak this way all the time. I would say things like, “I will never do that,” or “we will always do it this way,” and it sounded confident, clear, and strong. People are often drawn to that kind of language because certainty can feel like vision. Most of the time it is not. It is a narrow way of seeing that speaks too firmly before there has been enough understanding to justify it.
You see it in everyday life when a disagreement happens at home and one person says, “You never listen,” or “we always have this problem.” It feels true in the moment, but it usually comes from frustration more than clarity. Over time, that kind of language exposes its own weakness because reality is rarely that flat. Mature communication says what is true without pretending to see more than it does.
Don’t ignore the voice
There is often a voice underneath the noise that is telling the truth more clearly than we want to admit. Sometimes it is caution. Sometimes it is conviction. Sometimes it is the awareness that something is off, even if it looks fine on the outside. People ignore that voice when they want comfort, approval, speed, or distraction more than honesty. Over time, that disconnect weakens self-trust.
Even more so the more you dampen that voice the more quiet it gets. Intstead employ the practice of an itchy trigger finger. When you hear that voice telling you to stop, or when you hear that voice telling you to make a move...do it. The longer you wait the harder it gets.
None of these are dramatic on their own, but together they shape the kind of person we become. The way we process emotion, speak about our lives, remember our past, and respond to what we know deep down all matters. Refraining from these patterns has less to do with image or achievement and more to do with becoming someone grounded, honest, and whole.
Today’s Forced Challenge: I want you to FORCE yourself to attack at least one of these challenges:
1. Watch Your Language: Pay attention to how often you use words like always, never, everyone, or no one this week. Catching the pattern is the first step to changing it.
2. Feel It Fully: The next time something frustrates, disappoints, or unsettles you, do not rush to explain it away. Sit with it long enough to understand what is really going on underneath it.
3. Remember Your Proof: Write down five things you have already made it through that once felt bigger than you. Use them as evidence the next time you start doubting your ability to handle what is in front of you.
4. Respond Faster: When that internal voice tells you to make a move, have a conversation, or stop ignoring something, act on it sooner than you normally would. Delay tends to weaken clarity.
5. Build Better Self-Trust: Before the week ends, make one decision that aligns with what you know deep down instead of what feels easiest in the moment. Self-trust is strengthened through action, not theory.
In the end, becoming more of who we are meant to be is often less about what we add and more about what we stop giving space to. The language that distorts, the feelings we avoid, the proof we forget, the voice we ignore, all of it shapes us quietly over time.
Growth is not only found in what we pursue, but in what we learn to refrain from so that something truer, steadier, and more whole can take root.
“Trust yourself. Create the kind of self that you will be happy to live with all your life.”-Golda Meir
-Who you are today, is not who you have to be tomorrow-
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