Getting My Ass Moving


Each action removes the barrier to entry. Each action removes one more excuse off the list.

I’ve wanted to write about personal development for atleast 5 years. The biggest barrier though was not knowing where to start. So I had to take action. I set up a website. I chose the easiest one to set up, Squarespace. Now that I had a platform and a place to write, I had one less excuse to prevent me from writing.

Massive actions build momentum.

Take the big steps needed to start doing what it is that you want. I went through the pain of setting up a blog. It was one less excuse to start writing. I had to go through the pain of publishing my first post. Then I had to publish again. I had to learn the art of shipping your work.

I started off writing long, 10+ minute posts. Now my average post is about a 2 minute read. I needed to learn to ship more often. It doesn’t have to be perfect. Perfection is the enemy of results. The post is never up to my expectations or my standard. But I have the habit of writing daily. I learn to ship many times a week no matter what. I will have written thousands of more words, 5–10x more posts as I did before. I built momentum and learnt to ship the work.

Actions lead to lessons.

I hate everything I’ve written above this. It’s not meeting the vision that I had for this post. The ideas aren’t connecting. The words aren’t flowing.

But the post is going up. It doesn’t matter that I’m not very happy with it. I have a deadline and it needs to ship. Too bad for me. That’s what I deserve for not planning out my week. That’s what I deserve for not taking more time this week to write it. I shouldn’t have slept in 3 days in a row.

Each week I post new posts. Every time I learn something new. If I want to produce the quality of work I expect from myself, I need more time. I can’t rush the process. 3 days of sleeping in is half the week of writing. Losing momentum makes my brain rusty. Not posting is a missed opportunity to help someone. Not posting is a missed opportunity for me to learn about writing. Not posting is a missed opportunity for me to plan my thoughts.

Actions keep your head in the game.

Life is busy. It’s easy to do nothing. Doing nothing and no work towards our goals is a habit. We become numb to the desires of our hearts. We start to accept the daily grind. The status quo seems good enough. The lizard brain is comfortable cause we’re safe.

The daily actions though always keeps us moving. It’s not just the hour or two of writing that I get accomplished daily. It’s knowing that I need to wake up tomorrow and say something different. It’s knowing that I am running out of blog ideas and need new ones. It’s knowing that I have no stories to share and need a fresh one to share. The daily writing habit I have is not contained between 7–8am daily. It’s become 24/7. Inspiration suddenly pops up everywhere.


My daily writing habit is my daily action. It’s the daily habit. It’s becoming my new status quo. It’s becoming my new daily grind. The lizard brain still doesn’t like it. It still tries to scare the shit out of me. But I’m moving forward. This post may have zero impact publicly. But I’m learning. Gaining momentum. Learning to ship. Getting better at doing the work.

Summary:

Do.