James Harden has led the NBA in scoring for three of the past four seasons. He’s been named an All-Star nine seasons in a row, he’s made the NBA First Team list six times, and he was the league’s Most Valuable Player in 2018. Every discussion about the best basketball player in the world includes James Harden.
But perhaps what is most impressive about Harden is that he refuses to use all of his success as a reason to stagnate. Like the legends who came before him—Larry Bird, Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant—he famously commits to adding one element to his game every offseason.
When videos went around of Harden, already a prolific shooter, shooting these bizarre one-legged fade-away three pointers during the preseason, most assumed the superstar was just messing around. In fact, he was working. “I’m always trying to get better,” Harden explained of the one-legged shot. “This is my 11th year [in the NBA],” he said then, “and every single year I want to get better. I don’t want to stay the same. You’ve got to find ways to keep growing.”
Whether in sports, business, or life, the greats are always distinguished by how they’re looking to add a new element to their game. This is the Stoic way. A Stoic always has their eye on improving. As Epictetus said, quoting Socrates, “Just as one person delights in improving his farm, and another his horse, so I delight in attending to my own improvement day by day.”
The whole point—of life, of working out, of work—is to push yourself, and to grow, day by day, as a result of pushing against and through difficulty. An athlete betrays their sport if they stop looking to add to their repertoire. A writer betrays their craft if they do not take on projects just beyond their current capabilities. A lawyer betrays their profession if they take on only the cases they know they will win. And we betray ourselves and our potential if we do not seek out challenges.
The New Year is almost here and it’s the perfect chance to take on a challenge. To push yourself, to get better and stronger by pushing against and through difficulty, to inch closer to your potential. Why not start 2022 by taking the steps towards being the person you know you can be?
That’s one reason why we created the 2022 New Year, New You Challenge*. It’s a set of 21 actionable challenges—presented one per day—built around the best, most timeless wisdom in Stoic philosophy. Our goal is to help you make 2022 your best year yet.
Every year—this year right in front of you—can be the most important year of your life. The one where you become your best, most creative, most centered, most self-reliant and resilient self. But you have to be willing to step into difficulty. Because, like lifting weights, growth can’t happen without some resistance.
Our New Year, New You Challenge is all-new content, guided by thousands of responses and reactions to our previous challenges, courses, videos, and emails. It’s a whole new challenge based on painstaking research and timeless science, for an all-new, life changing experience.
The ideas in the challenge are designed to help you:
- Stop procrastinating on your dreams
- Gain clarity on the life you want to live
- Learn new skills
- Quit harmful vices
- Make amends
- Be more courageous
- Break destructive thought patterns
And much, much more…
We should think here on the eve of the new year, what are the risks or the downsides of NOT taking control of your life? For allowing another year to pass not living up to your potential? Not changing your ways? Most of the risks aren’t dire, but none of the downsides are good. Some are just downright miserable. Don’t let that happen in 2022. Again.
You have to seek out challenges. You have to find ways to keep growing. You can’t stay the same. You can’t betray your potential. Demand more of yourself in 2022. And one of the ways you can do that is by signing up to join us in the Daily Stoic New Year New You Challenge!
*Did you know that if you join Daily Stoic Life—the largest global community of Stoic thinkers and practitioners ever—you get the New Year New You Challenge and all of our current and future courses and challenges totally FREE! That’s over $500 of new content every year for free. To learn more about the Daily Stoic Life community and everything included in the membership, click here.
