#68 The sitcom comparison

You’re ahead of your time.

You’ll always be behind.

And you’re right where you’re supposed to be.

Writing, running, work, relationships… No matter how you feel today, these three statements are all true, all at the same time, for everything you do.

Now we’ve got that out of the way, you can continue to do the work.

We all have the ability to decide what’s good for us when we take the time to reflect on it.

But we also overestimate our ability to decide what’s good for us in the moment.

Which means that we all need to be saved from ourselves.

How?

By deciding in advance.

I’m going to write, because I decided in advance that that’s good for me – even if in the moment, I’d rather do something else.

I’m going to eat those vegetables, because I decided in advance that that’s good for me – even if in the moment, I’d rather eat those fries.

Here’s a question Tim Ferris asks startup founders (and himself) when deciding to invest time and money into a new project:

“If, in one (or two, or three) years from now, this whole project has failed miserably… Which assumptions you hold today were proven wrong?”

Tim Ferris

Answering the question first requires defining failure and success.

For my project of publishing a daily insight on this blog success looks like this:

Write & publish.

Edit.

Write & publish.

Edit.

Then write & publish some more.

Good, bad, well-received or not, received or read by anyone at all, it doesn’t matter.

Because first of all, writing is a creative outlet for me.

Second: long as I write & publish consistently, I trust I will get better at writing and publishing.

Finally: I trust that from all that sculpting away, day by day, will come better and better insights.

A pretty low bar for success – which, counterintuitively, often leads to more progress long-term.

Now we have established that:

What are the assumptions that could be wrong if next year, it turns out I failed to write & publish every day?

Here are some I can think of:

• Writing and publishing every day is going to be a long-term fulfilling activity for me
• I am truly fine with writing and publishing without anyone ever reading it
• I am fine spending considerable time on starting a new project that I might never monetize
• Writing & publishing every day really leads to better writing skills and interesting insights (although even if this assumption is false, it wouldn’t necessarily stop me from writing.)

Will these assumptions be proven wrong?

Only time will tell.

Until then… I write & publish… then write & publish some more.