What are the Obstacles to Doing the Real Thing?

Previously, I wrote about the importance of doing the real thing. Skills are narrow. Transfer is hard. Fake substitutes work less than you think.

Yet getting stuck on the fake stuff is easy. The writer who doesn’t publish anything. The artist who buys paint but struggles to put it on canvas. The entrepreneur that spends more time on business cards than getting clients.

I say this not to scold, but to remind myself. I trick myself into fake efforts more than most. Cleverness can be an enemy, as it enables elaborate justifications for why you don’t need to do the real thing.

With this in mind, I’d like to turn to some of the obstacles to the real thing. Why do we get stuck on fake stuff? What can we do to focus in on what actually matters?

Are Your Barriers Inside or Out?

There’s two flavors of obstacles you might face: inner and outer.

Outer obstacles are the ones we expect. You can’t do real work because nobody will give you a real job. You’re learning French, but the trip to Paris got cancelled. The playing field is out of bounds.

In these cases, substitutes are necessary, but they should approximate your target as closely as possible. French from a tutor on Skype isn’t exactly the same as…