It Took Me 10+ Years To Realize What I Can Write In the Next 5 Minutes

It changed almost everything

I never thought I would say what I’m about to say.

You see, 10 years ago, I was desperate to ‘make it’. All my energy went into figuring out how to earn climb the corporate ladder, to get the best job, and build the best career for myself.

I was (and always have been) obsessed with success. To me, that was a measure of a good life, to me, making it to the mountaintop was always the goal.

But everything changed when my life unfolded.

What happens when you’re a million miles away

In my mid-20s, I realized, this mountain top was light years away.

Like I was as far away as physically possible from where I wanted to be.

I was a total disaster. I barely had the energy to function, work was a daily battle, and I was exhausted by life. I would wake up, travel an hour to work, work 7:30 am til 6:30 pm, was consumed by work.

My body was there but my mind was elsewhere — dreaming about everything I could do. Everything I wasn’t doing right now.

I’d get home, throw something beige in the oven, slop onto the sofa feeling like my life was going nowhere, and spend the evening (or what was left of it) feeling bad that I wasn’t ever going to be the person I thought I was going to be.

My life was spent beating myself up, feeling like a failure, and wishing to be in different circumstances.

It was a mess. At 24, this was my definition of failure.

Podcasts, YouTube success stories, and overwhelm

I called it research.

I decided it was time to turn things around. Step 1? Educate myself on how I would make it a success. So every spare minute I got, I listened to podcasts, YouTube videos, and anything else I could get my hands on.

My commute to work was now flooded with stories of rags to riches.

Success story after success story. Some guy made millions building an app, another gal made millions launching a sweet company, and somebody else made their money baking cookies.

The ideas started to spill out of me. If I could just do one of the things that all these people were doing I could make it and be a success just like them.

It sparked this flurry of frantic business building. I’d build a thing, get bored, give up, start something else. Success never came. I gave up too soon and after a few months, I was totally overwhelmed by it all.

Now I was lower than low. I’d confirmed my worst fears, that I wasn’t good enough to build something by myself.

Silence and simplicity

After a few months, I decided to have another go. This time I took a different tact.

I cut out the noise.

I deleted Instagram. I did everything I could to quieten my mind. I knew these success stories weren’t serving me — If anything, they distorted my reality. They made me think success was a straight road, but no 2-hour interview could ever cover the struggles and stress of making a business work.

I knew that now.

So I switched it all off. Like a light switch. I decided it was no longer serving me and that actually, I was bored of trying to ‘make it’ or be something. I just wanted to find something that I had fun doing.

Something that I enjoyed.

So I started to write on the internet. About my life, thoughts, feelings, experiences in work — all of it. I started to write about my life and finally, after 6 years of trying, it didn’t feel like I was trying anymore.

It just became part of me.

It took 10 years to learn this but…

The fun doesn’t start when you achieve the things — it’s when you’re doing the work. It’s not the attainment of the thing, the big goals you set for yourself.

It’s not when you achieve the things — it’s when you are in the process of achieving the thing. When you’re showing up, when you’re making things happen when you’re building.

It’s that.

The real secret to all of this is the fun is working towards your goals on the day to day basis. You never arrive — not really. It’s not the accolades or the results, it’s the process. It’s the steps you take each day.

It’s showing up each day, working on a thing you love, and seeing where it takes you. It’s the process of building. It’s the person you become by showing up each day.

And you can start that today.

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