How to Anything
For a long time, I believed I could do anything. It was a belief that served me well. It gave me permission to dream. To try. To say yes before knowing how.
I have long approached the world with the quiet confidence that, with enough effort, energy, or intention, anything was possible.
And then, I tried to do everything.
Especially in business, I fell into that trap—believing that since we could do anything, then we must do everything.
Why not chase every idea, pursue every opportunity, take on every client, build every product? I told myself it was ambition. I told myself it was vision. But over time, I realized it was noise.
When everything matters, it becomes hard to tell what really does.
It wasn’t sudden. There was no single moment of collapse or crisis. Just a slow, growing awareness that the energy I was spreading across many things was leaving us with little depth in any one of them.
I was always moving, but rarely arriving. And the more we did, the harder it became to explain—to myself and to others—what we were really about.
I didn’t want to choose. That’s what made it so hard. Choosing meant closing doors. It meant letting go of ideas that were exciting, even if they weren’t essential. It meant acknowledging that time, energy, and attention are finite. It meant growing up.
We’re often told a story that anything is possible. But what that story leaves out is that everything is not.
That’s the quiet truth at the heart of this reflection.
We can do anything. But not everything.
Tradeoffs are not something I was eager to embrace. For years, I saw them as compromises. As limits. As what happens when things don’t go to plan. But I’ve started to see them differently. Tradeoffs are not signs of failure. They are signs of choosing.
Choosing what to focus on is not a weakness. It’s a kind of wisdom. It’s a way of celebrating and deciding what matters most right now, even if it means setting aside things that also matter—just not right now.
There’s a cultural pressure. The quiet—but constant—messages that more is better. That success looks like expansion. That if I say no, I’m missing out. Falling behind. Thinking small.
I’ve felt that pressure. I’ve internalized it. And I’ve seen how easily it can pull me away from my own intuition.
But there is something deeply grounding in making tradeoffs with intention. In not just reacting to what’s urgent, but returning to what’s essential. In being honest with myself about what season I’m in, what I can hold, and what I need to put down, for now.
It reminds me of pruning. Cutting back not because something is dead, but because I want something else to grow. Tradeoffs can feel harsh in the moment. But over time, they create the space for depth. For clarity. For flow.
These days, I try to make tradeoffs from a place of alignment rather than fear. When I’m afraid, I say yes too often. I chase too many things. I try to prove too much. But when I’m grounded, I can feel what’s mine to do—and what isn’t. And I can make those choices more gently.
Sometimes, I still resist. I still fall into the temptation of doing more. Saying yes to everything can feel good—until it doesn’t. Until I find myself tired, scattered, or unsure of what I’m really working toward. That’s usually when I remember to pause. To step back. To ask a quiet question that has become a kind of compass: what matters most right now?
That question doesn’t give me certainty. But it helps me listen. It helps me notice what I’m holding onto, and what I might be ready to release.
I still believe I can do anything. But now I know that doing anything means choosing. It means being okay with not doing everything. It means trusting that every time I let go of something, I am making space for something else to emerge.
And that is how I learned to anything.
