You Can Handle More Than You Can Handle

You have so much more in you than it feels like you do. You got this. The Daily Stoic New Year, New You Challenge is 3 weeks of ALL-NEW, actionable challenges, presented in an email per day, built around the best, most timeless wisdom in Stoic philosophy, to help you create a better life, and a new you in 2025. Why 3 weeks? Because it takes human beings 21 days to build new habits and skills, to create the muscle memory of making beautiful choices each and every day. Head over to dailystoic.com/challenge today to sign up.📕 Discipline is Destiny by Ryan Holiday 🎙️ Follow The Daily Stoic Podcast on Instagram🎥 Watch top moments from The Daily Stoic Podcast on YouTube✉️ Want Stoic wisdom delivered to your inbox daily? Sign up for the FREE Daily Stoic email at https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail🏛 Get Stoic inspired books, medallions, and prints to remember these lessons at the Daily Stoic Store: https://store.dailystoic.com/📱 Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and 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 Daily Stoic Podcast, where each day we bring you a passage of ancient wisdom designed to help you find strength, insight, and wisdom in everyday life. Each one of these passages is based on the 2,000-year-old philosophy that has guided some of history's greatest men and women. For more, you can visit us, dailystoic.com.

• 0:30Ryan Holiday?

  So why do they do it? Why do thousands of people all over the world sign up for the Daily Stoic New Year, New You Challenge? Maybe it seems crazy to you. Maybe it doesn't make any sense. It's like, oh, I could do without it. I could do it by myself. Well, I thought maybe I'd just let you hear it in their own words. Here are some folks that signed up for the Daily Stoic New Year, New You Challenge over the years.

• 0:52Speaker 01

  I'm really loving the challenge. And everyone I'm talking to about it's really kind of enjoying hearing about it. So I just want to say thank you for everything.

• 0:59Speaker 02

  This was a really cool way to start the year. Thank you. About three years ago, I discovered you. So I've been through ego is the enemy fairly recently. And of course, this year's challenge, I've been doing the challenge for three years.

• 1:12Speaker 03

  I'm kind of a real-life embodiment of some of the stuff my wife passed from cancer. But just learn that it's day-by-day process, kind of cliche. I have been reading the Stoics and participating in your challenges the past few years.

• 1:25Ryan Holiday?

  And look, I'll give you one testimonial on top of that. It's worked really well for me. I get something out of making the challenge, but I also do it alongside all of you. It's one of my favorite things. It kicks off the year right for me. So if you want to kick the year off right with a challenge, well, join us in the Daily Stoic New Year, New You Challenge. You can sign up right now at dailystoic.com/challenge. It's going to start on January 1st. Why don't you challenge yourself right now to stop procrastinating and do it? And I will see you in there.

• 1:59Ryan Holiday?

  You can handle more than you can handle. It's too much, not another thing, not another problem, not another person, not another piece of bad news. You just can't handle it. We all feel that way, but that doesn't mean it's true. Athletes learn that your body is a liar, that when you feel like you're at capacity, you're not even close to your physical limitations. Courtney Dewalter talked about this in an amazing episode of the Daily Stoic Podcast a while back. This is partly why Seneca talked about treating the body rigorously, so that we can learn to triumph over these limitations, that we get good at asserting who is actually in charge. "I can handle way more than I can handle," Bonnie Versting, and it's true, we all can.

• 2:42Ryan Holiday?

  You have so much more in you than it feels like you do. And how do you know this? Because the load you're handling today dwarfs the load you could have carried at other times in your life. The things you were handling calmly today would have freaked you out just a few years ago. You have so much more capacity. Your inner citadel is strong. You've got this. And look, that's what I'm trying to say in Discipline is Destiny. We've got to cultivate this destiny, this command of oneself. So when we have command of oneself, we can command ourselves in so many difficult and stressful, even scary situations. All the virtues are related. There's a big overlap in here with courage, like, no, you can do it. Don't be so afraid. Courage is calling.

• 3:24Ryan Holiday?

  Discipline is destiny are two great places to start if you want to explore this idea a little bit more.