It’s been quite a telling journey trying to write every day this month. I had a hard time with this.
So far, after some experimentation, I have found a routine that looks like a consistent uploading habit on Medium from my side.
It was not an easy journey to get to this point, though.
It was relatively hard to get here.
I was ready to give up writing on Medium at the beginning of this year, and then I had to make a tough mindset shift to navigate a situation like this.
I cannot keep giving up on things before they even take off.
And I know my time will come.
It will come. I know it.
All I need right now is a little patience, faith, and the resolve to keep at it even when it feels hard to keep going, even when I feel like I’m writing my words into the void.
I need to do what I do best.
Show up and get things done.
It’s hard to start new things
When you start a new thing, anything really, it’s reasonably hard to keep up with it because you’re just starting out, and you don’t know what you should expect, nosediving into the unknown.
New challenges show up on your doorstep, and you might get disheartened because of them and stop because
a) you do not have a lot of experience dealing with this shit.
b) you do not have a lot of experience dealing with this shit.
c) you do not have a lot of experience dealing with this shit.
d) even if you have had a lot of experience dealing with this shit, you do not know what will tip the scales in your favour.
e) giving up seems easy and achievable.
f) giving up is what you know, and what you know is comfortable. Once you give up, you’re back in the comfort of your safety bubble, where you don’t have to deal with any obstacles if you do nothing.
And don’t we all want a life where we don’t have to deal with either challenges or obstacles?
Sounds like a good life, does it not?
Lying on your back on the living room couch and watching some mundane show that will not make you think.
But again, is that really what you want?
Time to ask yourself this question sincerely:
Do you really not want to do anything?
I don’t think you would answer yes to this question.
You might think, “Hmm, that sounds like a good choice, and I want to laze under the blanket all day scrolling endlessly on my phone.”
But in reality, that’s not what you really want.
You don’t want to doom-scroll for the rest of your life, staring at your phone screen and lying on the couch all day watching mundane TV shows.
Okay, I mean, you can want to do those two or three days in a row or on Sundays, but you can not realistically even do that for the rest of your life and be happy.
Let’s face it.
You want an easy life.
If it is easy you want, here is how you can do it.
Get up, show up, and do the hard work.
But do I really want to show up and do the hard work?
It depends on you as a person.
But when you try to show up to do the same thing every day, it sometimes feels like it’s getting even harder to get through the tasks.
The initial excitement fades away, and in its place, an ugly form of resistance weasels its way into your heart and tries to change your mind.
You are constantly bargaining with yourself.
You are telling yourself that maybe you don’t have to do this task because now you’re giving up your free time to build this habit, and why do you need this habit anyway?
If we are talking about me … here’s how it goes with me.
What’s the point of all this hard work when no one reads my articles?
(Looking at you, readers who view but don’t read the articles through.)
There’s a point, though.
I’m learning how to communicate better with my writing every day.
But I digress.
At least, going back and forth and bargaining myself to get out of doing tasks is all that my brain does when I’m not feeling motivated.
That’s just how my brain bargains with me.
But here’s the one thing I have learnt throughout this journey of being a solopreneur.
Things get easier when you show up
If I stick to my idea of discipline and show up for myself for a certain amount of time, things will eventually get easier.
Not that things get easier to deal with in time because they just magically don’t, since this is not an ideal world where things will go according to your plan, and things rarely fall into place the way you want them to fall.
I got better at handling things because I learnt how to successfully chip away at my resistance little by little by taking consistent action.
This way, I’m not just hoping for things to fall in place on their own, but I’m actively working towards the resistance to make doing tasks easier for me.
Learning to do things and practising discipline is an active and interactive process.
You do things, and you also learn more about yourself and the way you do things.
The truth is apparent somewhere between those lines.
It just takes a bit of time for you to figure it out.
And sometimes, that is all you need.
You need to show up for yourself and keep putting one foot in front of the other to get somewhere.
Who knows how far this will take you?
The thing is, we will not know the answer to this question if we do not try.
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