I've been sitting in front of my laptop for 20 minutes trying to come up with something to write about today.
I have my endless idea generator. I have a list of topics. I have questions my clients have asked recently. Yet I cannot get myself to write something.
"Why is this so goddamn hard?"
As I sat here pondering that question I realized it's only hard because I'm making it hard.
I choose to complicate things. I choose to not start writing right away and instead begin "planning" my essay. If you're like me you know what it's like… Trying to make efficient a process you have yet to start.
And so, after a minute or two of feeling sorry for myself, I decided to ask myself a better question.
"The quality of your life is determined by the quality of the questions you ask yourself." – Tony Robbins
Immediately, the question that popped into my head was: "what would this look like if it was easy?"
The answer?
Stop thinking so much about the outcome and focus on the process. Run your protocol.
Ever since I began writing a daily essay, I've wanted others to read it. And hopefully engage with it. I've learned about writing headlines, hooks, "scroll-stoppers", etc. And every day I have not-so-secretly hoped people would like and perhaps share my work with their audience.
But today when I asked myself this question I realized the whole point of writing every day is… writing every day!
That's what's in my protocol!
And I immediately remembered this interview of olympic athlete Alexi Pappas (look at 1:36:50)
In it she talks about the rule of thirds:
"When you're chasing your dreams, you're going to feel crappy a third of the time. And this is normal. If you're always feeling good, you're not pushing yourself hard enough." - Alexi Pappas
Frankly, the last few days of the year were more on the "crappy" and the "ok" thirds.
But I kept showing up and running my protocol.
And today I had the chance to apply my protocol to my writing.
What about you? Feeling crappy about anything in your life? Just show up and run your protocol.
