You may be making life too hard for yourself if you focus only on outcomes or parts without considering the whole, think there is a single right answer, or create an "us vs. them" mentality. Specifically, the document outlines three ways this occurs: 1) being too outcome-focused without considering individual steps, 2) believing there is one answer without considering alternatives, and 3) othering people or situations instead of embracing diversity.

1. How do you know when you’re making life too hard for yourself ?

2. Here are three ways that I’ve personally witnessed…

3. 1

4. You know you are making life too hard for yourself when you are…

5. Being too “outcomes” focussed

6. Or … To say it another way … It is when you are…

7. Focusing on the whole to the exclusion of the parts

9. 2

10. You know you are making life too hard for yourself when you are…

11. Thinking there’s ONE right answer…(And it’s 42!)

12. Or… To say it another way … It is when you are…

13. Focusing on the parts to the exclusion of the whole

15. And… Finally…

16. 3

17. You know you are making life too hard for yourself when you are…

18. Othering (Materializing “Us and Them”)(Believing the “difficult person” myth)

19. Or… To share the antidote…

20. Parts outside the whole make the whole bigger.

22. Which of the three have you noticed?