What If You Just Did It?

At the beginning of February, I made a decision.

I was unemployed. I’d had an idea for a novel but I’d written barely any of it. Every day I said I was going to write, but instead all I did was drink, sleep and binge on TV shows.

I can’t remember exactly what sparked it but it kind of hit me,

“Motherfucker you say you want to be a writer, then why the fuck aren’t you writing?”

The next day I took an unopened Moleskine (you know how it is, they’re so fancy and expensive you don’t want to spoil them by actually using them), I went to a library, and I started to write.

February was a great month, I wrote nearly 1,000 words a day. I dropped off the novel when I came here to Italy but I’m back at it again, and despite the novel being neglected I have been writing a lot.

There are two things I learned from this that I wanted to share with you all.

First, it’s so easy to change your life, to do the things you have to do. You just have to do them. It seems so obvious now but think about it — how long have you been putting off that pet project you’ve always wanted to do? How many “I’ll start tomorrow”s only to realise tomorrow hasn’t come around yet?

I promise you this, the second you start to actually do it, to go after your dream, you’ll find how easy it is to get going, to find motivation, to make it a habit.

We are always SO scared of starting things and going after big dreams because they seem so unachievable, but once you start really prioritising them, looking into it more, you’ll see how it’s not a mad overnight success, it’s lot of little goals that are immensely achievable with a little hard work and discipline.

Secondly, I’ve learned that once you start going after what you want, the universe provides. The world doesn’t want you to stay down, it wants to help you up. In April, I wrote an article. A letter I guess. I posted it on Facebook, and a friend told me to send it in to a blog she followed, so I did.

I came back after lunch and they’d posted it on Facebook. By the end of the day It had over 4,5000 likes and 1,200 shares, along with hundreds of comments and messages to me.

I was blown away, I never really thought that something I wrote could reach and touch so many people. It was a serious turning point for me, I realised (without tooting my own horn) I was actually a decent writer, and there were people out there who wanted to read what I write.

I sent the article to my parents and along came miracle number two. Anyone I’ve talked to about my father knows that we have very different views about life, about what success is, what happiness is. I’ve always told him I’ve wanted to be a writer, but I’ve never really shared anything with him and he’s never taken it seriously. He’s also a man of little affection, with his words at least. He’s always shown his love and support through his actions and through his disappointment when I fuck up. While if you ask my mother, she’ll explain in great detail how I’m the greatest human being to have walked the planet if only I was a bit less messy and wore smarter clothes. My dad told me “You are really good writer, I have no doubt you will become published one day”.

Fuck me, that was amazing to hear that, from a man with a very scientific and logical mind, who’s never really cared for the world of art, who has always been a little skeptical about my desperate want to be in the creative field, to be moved by something I wrote and to fully believe that I am capable of doing this.

I think in the years to come, when I hopefully one day make a success of this whole writing thing, I will look back on that post as the Facebook post that changed my life.

After this amazing reception I went at my writing with renewed vigour and I have continued to get great feedback from friends I share my work with and I believe I am becoming a better writer.

I guess my point here is you don’t have to let life happen to you. You don’t have to feel like you’re too old or too inexperienced to start doing what you’ve always wanted to do.

I’m not trying to be preachy here, I’m still very much another scruffy dude who’s “working on a novel”. There are thousands of people out there just like me.

But like Wood Allen said, “80% of success is just turning up”

Well, I might be a bit late to class, but I’ve started turning up.

I hope I’ll see you there too.