For many years I’ve followed Erwan Le Corre online. I started following him for his extreme and quirky fitness routine, but I found him to be an interesting thinker overall.

He recently posted a challenge on X to list all the things that “keep you going” and ask yourself why. Well, that sounded interesting.

I dragged my feet a few weeks, but eventually I sat down and started listing things. It was eye opening…

I’m not comfortable sharing the whole list, but here’s most of it:

• Alcohol — in moderation, but still felt as a need from time to time.
• Coffee — no moderation here.
• Sleep, workout and food routines — Mine are borderline manic when I started thinking about them.
• Snacks — I eat sweets or salty snacks basically every day.

At this point (with a few embarrasingly detailed ones added around food, etc) I stepped back and thought about if there was a pattern.

It was blaring like a siren obvious.

I am avoiding the discomfort of doing scary things by rewarding myself with snacks. And using alchohol and caffeine to force me to do infinitely boring shit. Not that the activities themselves are boring, it’s just that they bore me because I’m already frustrated by not doing the scary things.

I recommend trying this. Thanks again Erwan.