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Put Your Blinders on and do the Work
If it’s a grind, so be it
In a world obsessed with stats and results, it’s easy to get caught up in the wrong thing.
Though it’s worthwhile to evaluate results periodically, a fixation on outcomes can be unhealthy, and even detrimental to your progress as a creative or creator. Because process is the part you can control, outcomes are not.
Filters are crucial to your survival. Without them, you will take on too much, burn out, and get caught up in an unhealthy game of comparison that steals your happiness.
We need to be able to put our blinders on, even if it’s only for a short duration, to focus long enough on the process that we see desired results flow in.
Every “Overnight Success” Was 10 Years in the Making
I find it easy to fixate on the results, even unprompted. Even when there’s virtually no reason to.
I needlessly check in on my Medium stats, even on days where I know I’m not going to get any love…
Even on days when my posts probably won’t be accepted into a publication, and despite the 700 some odd followers I have, all I can expect are a couple of claps on my stories…
Look, it’s not always like that. I have stories that have done well. Stories that continue to captivate and engage.
But I think this is perhaps one of the dark sides of publishing daily… That every day you publish, you almost expect your next big break to happen. When it has literally never worked that way.
The Six-Month Window
Everyone around me says “stick to it for six months — you will see results.”
Which has me looking at myself and wondering if I have done something wrong.
There are some things I have been doing for 10 or 20+ years that I can honestly say I haven’t really seen the ship come in on.
So, that’s where I find the “six months” idea thoroughly unhelpful. I’m not saying there’s no truth to it. You will see some results. But will they be the results you’ve been hoping and waiting for?
