The 5 Great Mistakes (Most People Make)
A preview of the Inner Excellence 90 Day Challenge
Summary
The last 6-8 months have been fairly intense work on the upcoming Inner Excellence workbook—I’m super excited to share it with you!
This is Day 5 from the workbook (which is essentially me coaching you, the reader, for 90 days.)
Thank you so much for your patience between blog posts while I create the workbook—and thank you to the over 200 volunteers who’ve provided feedback.
The next Inner Excellence retreat is in New York at by far the lowest price ever: $525 USD, September 18-20, 2026. (Our YWAM Retreats in Mexico are about $2500/person, but also include building a house).
We are considering a private retreat in Spain in mid-November—please reply to this email if you are interested. There’s only space for around 15 attendees.
Note: Please pray for what the International Rescue Committee lists as the top three humanitarian crises in the world right now: the civil war in Sudan, where tens of millions of people are in desperate need, the occupied Palestinian territory, where over 70,000 people have died in the last two years, and South Sudan, where the risk of civil war is escalating. Go to Amnesty International or International Rescue Committee to see how you can help.
Day 5: The Five Great Mistakes (Most People Make)
The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. – Henry David Thoreau, Walden (1854)
As we get going on this journey, I want to share with you some of the most common mistakes people make as they go through life, for you to consider along the way.
1. Disordered loves.
Mistaking what truly matters to your heart. Attachment to what’s temporary. Playing in a mud puddle when the whole ocean is offered. Allowing things that only give surface-level satisfaction and temporary pleasure to take the top place in your heart. Conforming to what the surrounding culture says is great and missing out on fullness of life.
Our default is to love most what’s most helpful to our circumstances or pleasurable to our senses. This creates instability because we live in an unstable world and so we spend our lives constantly trying to be more secure and comfortable. This leads to attachment to what we want but can’t control, busyness, and to hurry. It becomes a lack of presence, and when we’re not present we miss so much: beauty, opportunities, love, wisdom, courage, depth of understanding, meaning, and fulfilling relationships.
2. Self-deception.
Not fully examining your life. Not realizing that human nature is self-centered and that this default moves you toward many potential personal difficulties like conformity, people-pleasing, comparison, envy, and anxiety, to name a few. Being wrong about yourself and building your life on this misunderstanding.
Believing your role as a parent is fulfilled by spending “quality time” with them.
Imagine a parent who views their role as providing a loving home for their kids and spending quality time with them—but then, when they’re with them, they’re not present. Well, that’s an easy one, be more present, right? But even if they’re present more often, what are the kids learning when they’re with them? If they’re not teaching and modeling sacrificial love, learning and growth, and the development of a purpose beyond themselves, the bottom line is that their kids will love most what the culture loves most (possessions, achievements, looks, money, and status—PALMS), which makes it unlikely that they’ll ever reach their potential or live their best possible life.
3. Lack of ego mastery: Taking things personal and having to be right
The ego is the part of the mind that’s always threatened, always comparing, and always putting you on trial—and the trial never ends. With the ego always judging, you constantly have to watch what you wear, say, and do, and it always has to measure up, because if you don’t, you’ll face the ultimate disappointment: social rejection. (Or so the ego says.)
This sets the stage for two big mistakes:
Taking things personally. Every time we take something personal (even if the other person was intentionally rude or mean), we limit the love, wisdom, and courage available to us as well as every other good thing.
Having to be right (make sure people know that we’re not wrong). We have to be right, because if we’re not, we risk social rejection, which is generally a human’s greatest fear. But if you’re willing to be wrong and rejected, your life will unfold with unexpected opportunities.
4. Using the wrong scoreboard.
Measuring your life by standards you’ll one day regret. Appraising your life in accordance with temporary things; confusing appearances with value. This could cause you to spend your entire adult life getting really good at something only to discover (too late) that it never really mattered.
5. Refusing to face death.
Until you face the fact that you will one day die, you will continually be afraid of what you haven’t faced, and until then, you’ll die a thousand deaths. But if you scroll to the end of your life and realize that day could come soon (even tomorrow), it will help you be present and grateful each day. Death is the ultimate fear, and once you embrace it, you can be free.
A warrior considers it his foremost concern to keep death in mind at all times, every day and every night… As long as you keep death in mind at all times, you will fulfill the ways of loyalty, avoid myriad evils and calamities, be physically sound and healthy, and live a long life. What is more, your character will improve and your virtue will grow. – Taira Shigesuke, Samurai (sidebar/in box)
Key Takeaway: The easiest person to deceive is yourself. If you don’t think you’ve deceived yourself, how would you know? Busyness is one of the great obstacles to the best possible life—spending too much time advancing your career or improving your circumstances, and not enough time doing the inner work necessary to live the best possible life.
Application: Which of the five mistakes do you need to work on most? What’s one small thing you can do today in that area? Comment below!
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