10 Stoic Choices You Can Make Today (To Get Better)

On today’s podcast Ryan gives you 10 Stoic inspired choices that you can make today to live a better life. The single most important practice in Stoic philosophy is differentiating between what we can change and what we can’t. What we have influence over and what we do not. The same is true for us today. If we can focus on making clear what parts of our day are within our control and what parts are not, we will not only be happier, we will have a distinct advantage over other people who fail to realize they are fighting an unwinnable battle. KiwiCo believes in the power of kids and that small lessons today can mean big, world-changing ideas tomorrow. KiwiCo is a subscription service that delivers everything your kids will need to make, create and play. Get 30% off your first month plus FREE shipping on ANY crate line with code STOIC at kiwico.com. Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: https://DailyStoic.com/signupFollow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, FacebookSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info. 📢 Share | ⚙️ Manage Subscription

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:03Ryan Holiday?

  Welcome to the weekend edition of the Daily Stoic. Each weekday, we bring you a meditation inspired by the ancient Stoics, something to help you live up to those four Stoic virtues of courage, justice, temperance, and wisdom. And then here on the weekend, we take a deeper dive into those same topics. We interview Stoic philosophers. We explore at length how these Stoic ideas can be applied to our actual lives and the challenging issues of our time. Here on the weekend, when you have a little bit more space, when things have slowed down, be sure to take some time to think, to go for a walk, to sit with your journal,

• 0:46Ryan Holiday?

  and most importantly, to prepare for what the week ahead may bring. Hey, it's Ryan Holiday. Welcome to another episode of the Daily Stoic Podcast. We are the product of our choices, right? And I forget who said it, but we make a choice. And sure enough, there we are, having to choose again. We are constantly having to choose. Life is an unending series of choices. So in today's episode, I wanted to give you some Stoic choices, some things Stoics try to choose to do, choose to think about, choose to value, that will make you better. Of course, at the essence of Stoicism is a choice. Am I going to focus on what I control or what I don't control?

• 1:30Ryan Holiday?

  Am I going to focus on what I have influence over or what I do not? And in fact, Epictetus says, "This is the chief task, the chief choice in life." Today, we have some choices that I hope you will make, choices that I think will make you better, choices that will challenge you. These are not always easy choices. In fact, most choices are hard. And at the core of Stoicism is, of course, another choice. I talk about this in the intro to the Courage book, the choice of Hercules, the choice between the easy road and the hard road virtue and vice. One road or another, they diverge in the wood. Which one will you choose? It makes all the difference. So today are 10 inspired Stoic choices,

• 2:15Ryan Holiday?

  things you can do, you don't have to do, but you could do, that will make you better and help you live a better life.

• 2:31Ryan Holiday?

  Being great at something requires concentration. It requires elimination. Seneca says, "He who is everywhere is nowhere." If you want to be great at whatever it is you're doing, it means focus. Everything you say yes to means saying no to something else. But conversely, when you say no to other things, when you say no to the inessential, the Stoics say, it allows you to say yes to double down on what truly is essential. So what are you saying no to so you can say yes to what matters?

• 3:04Ryan Holiday?

  We know what it is we need to do, right? We have the information. The problem is doing it. Marcus really says, "You could be good today. Instead, you choose tomorrow." We put it off. We say, "I'm going to get started on the diet. I'm going to get started on the novel. I'm going to get started cleaning the house. I'm not going to do it today. I'm going to do it tomorrow." If it was about information, no one would be overweight. No one would be unhealthy. Everyone would have six-pack abs. Every project would get completed. We know how to do it. The problem is that we don't do it. We don't take the steps. That's why the Stoics have the discipline of action. At the end of the day, it's all about the action. It's not what you say. It's not what you think. It's what you do. What action are you going to take? What step are you going to take?

• 3:48Ryan Holiday?

  And really, that's how you finish stuff, step by step. Just take the first step, Marcus really says. No one can stop you from that.

• 4:00Ryan Holiday?

  One of Seneca's most popular quotes is, "We suffer more in imagination than in reality." What he's trying to say is you don't have to suffer in advance. Anxiety is a punishment to yourself. It doesn't resolve or adjust the situation. It just makes you nervous and uncomfortable and miserable and often brings about exactly what you were fearing in the first place. So the Stoics are prepared for what life can throw at us, but we don't suffer before we need to because we know that it doesn't do anything about the situation.

• 4:33Ryan Holiday?

  The Stoics want you to stop wasting time. Stop wasting time focusing on things that are outside your control. Stop wasting time putting stuff off. Stop wasting time caring about what other people think. Stop wasting time regretting the past. Stop wasting time thinking you're going to live forever. Momentum, worry, life is very short. And to waste doing any of these things, doing these things that you know you shouldn't be doing, is to reject the gift of life that you have in your possession at this very moment.

• 5:06Ryan Holiday?

  Oftentimes, unfortunately, the way we respond to something makes it worse. We tell ourselves that something is unfair. We tell ourselves that we're screwed over. We tell ourselves that this is the worst thing that ever happened. And great people don't do this, right? When the United States was launching the Apollo program, what they actually looked for in the astronauts was not their ability to pilot, although they hired some of the greatest test pilots from the Air Force. But what they really looked for was their ability to regulate their emotions in stressful situations. And they would train, they trained this skill to its apex. So over and over again, the astronauts were exposed to stressful situations. They were gradually exposed over time to everything they would potentially face in space.

• 5:48Ryan Holiday?

  So when an astronaut like John Glenn orbits the planet Earth for more than a day, his heart rate actually never goes over 100 beats per minute. Meanwhile, most of us, you know, we get an angry phone call or an unpleasant email, we start to feel that pounding in our chest because we haven't practiced that. And it's so dangerous, especially for an astronaut, not to practice that because without that meticulous preparation, if something goes wrong, you're really screwed over. You can, as Chris Hadfield, who's a Canadian astronaut, said a few years ago, he's saying, "Look, it's worth remembering that there's no problem so bad that you can't make it worse also." And that's oftentimes what our perceptions do. We make a bad thing even worse, and then we complain that it's too hard to get over.

• 6:32Ryan Holiday?

  And so I'm particularly inspired by people who don't do this. So as Epictetus says, "Who then is invincible? The one who cannot be upset by anything outside his reasoned choice."

• 6:45Ryan Holiday?

  Promo code Stoic. Don't focus on how far you've come. Focus on how far you have left to go. Epictetus says there is nothing less philosophical than someone who puts on airs about their progress, about their study of wisdom, about their breakthroughs. Marcus Aurelius, even as an old man, was saying, "You're still a long way off from being a philosopher." This is a lifelong pursuit. If you focus on how far you've come, you get arrogant and complacent. If you focus on how far you have left to go, all the things you have left to learn, then you get better. A great physicist once said that, "As our island of knowledge grows, so does the shoreline of ignorance." That's true for self-improvement, too.

• 7:29Ryan Holiday?

  As you get better, you should be seeing constantly all the things that you have left to get better in. So don't get complacent, don't get egotistical. Focus on how far you have left to go.

• 7:44Ryan Holiday?

  All the great moments in Stoic history involve standing up for the little guy. Cato stands up for the little guy. Rutilius Rufus stands up for the little guy. Marcus Aurelius passes laws that not only protects Rome's slaves, he even gives wooden swords to the gladiators so they won't get hurt in the arena. We're all privileged. We all have advantages. And at different times, we're going to see ourselves in positions of power or influence where we can do something for someone. And a huge part of Stoicism is using that power, using that privilege, to lessen the burden, to make life easier and better for other people, right? It's Stoic virtue of justice. Justice is a core Stoic virtue. Just that you do the right thing, the rest doesn't matter.

• 8:27Ryan Holiday?

  The fruit of this life, Marcus Aurelius says, is good character and acts for the common good, which especially and particularly means speaking up and standing up for people who can't stand up and speak up for themselves.

• 8:43Ryan Holiday?

  99% of the things that you spend time on don't matter. It's not that they're not important, it's that we focus on things that are not up to us. That's what Epictetus says. He says, "The chief task in life is to separate things that are in our control from those that are not in our control." What other people do, what other people say, the weather, how the dice rolls, so much stuff that we spend time, energy worrying about, hoping for, regretting, wishing, willing to be different was never up to us. And so by spending our time on what is up to us, that's what matters. So it's not that things don't matter, it's that most of the things that we focus on about things don't matter because it was never up to us. The Stoics say, "Focus on what's in your control." That's what a philosopher does.

• 9:30Ryan Holiday?

  You have to be willing to look stupid. That's what Epictetus says. He says, "If you wish to improve, you must be willing to look clueless or stupid about some things." I think that means, one, you have to be willing to ask dumb questions. If you don't ask, you can't learn. If you're afraid of what other people think, you'll never learn what you don't know. But I think the other part is you have to be willing to not care about stuff, right? To be like, "I don't care about that. I'm not following that. I'm out of touch about that." That's one part. Then I think the other part is you have to be willing to be bad at stuff, right? To be at the beginner stages, to be embarrassingly figuring it out, to be mediocre, to be in the process of rediscovering or changing or growing. So if you want to improve, the Stoics say you have to be willing to look

• 10:15Ryan Holiday?

  stupid, to look embarrassed, to be ridiculous, to not be good, because that's how you get from where you are to where you want to go.

• 10:26Ryan Holiday?

  There's a bunch of difficult things I try to do every day. I try to take a cold shower. I get up early. I intermittent fast. I try to do a really hard workout every day. I try to push myself physically so I can be better mentally. Seneca said, "We should treat the body rigorously so it's not disobedient to the mind." The point is, you are deliberately challenging yourself. You're seeking out challenges because life is hard and you want to build muscle to be able to do. Deal with those challenges. You want to be able to build the willpower, the mental strength, the fortitude to be able to deal with setbacks and misfortune and adversity and difficulty. You want to be prepared. And a stoic prepares themselves by seeking out those challenges in the ordinary course of life.

• 11:10Ryan Holiday?

  You do these things because it makes you stronger and better and more able to deal with the challenges of life.

• 11:18Ryan Holiday?

  My new book Courage is Calling is now officially a New York Times bestseller. Thank you so much to everyone who supported the book. It was literally and figuratively overwhelming. We signed almost 10,000 copies of the book, which just, you know, it hit me right here and I appreciate it so much. If you haven't picked up a copy or you want to pick up a signed copy as a gift, please do. You can get your copy at dailystoic.com/courageiscalling or you can just go to store.dailystoic.com.