How I found my business in passion: the place between boredom, inspiration and a pile of pebbles

I didn’t know Medium existed until about 5 months ago and now I find I argue with it, and myself, on a daily basis thanks to the wealth of brilliant articles that sit here. But I’ve always been stuck when I’ve come to writing things — do I actually agree with what I’m trying to write? Is it still going to be true tomorrow? Is this article sufficiently epic to justify even starting to write it.

Then I read an article that told me “Little things are big things” and I figured I should get on with the little things — like getting into the habit of writing anything and everything. And let the epicness take care of itself.

Likewise I’m a planner — a thinker not a doer — and anything I plan is big. Nothing is small-scale. Go big or go home. So I’m working on doing little things that will scale up. Like writing. Or the smallest thing on my list, that is an actual “doing” thing rather than a “thinking or researching” thing, rather than the biggest. My little things endeavour won’t necessarily apply to the length of my sentences.

And then I read that “Inspiration is for losers”. Really? Well, that’s a curveball that kinda screws things up. I love being inspired. I love the feeling of working on something worthwhile. And I love to keep working on it — that big inspirational dream. I argued with this article all the way through. “Utter nonsense”, I proclaimed. How can you follow your dreams without inspiration?

And then Johnson Kee went a step further and asked me to “fall in love with boredom”. You are kidding me, right? I work for myself and run the business of my dreams so I can fall in love with boredom? That was what I left employment for. You are deliberately trying to mess with my head aren’t you!

So I went for a run on the beach and threw pebbles into the sea. And kept coming back to those little things. If you’re inspired — and I mean really inspired — and you spend your time focusing on that inspiration, can you work on the little things — those little wins , the small steps? The moon landing may have been one small step and one giant leap all at the same time but there were a whole pile of small steps that came first — well practised, repeatedly rehearsed and worked through. The inspiration, the motivation was that one moment of landing on the moon but that big dream wouldn’t have helped get all the safety testing and training and the small, necessary but incidental, boring things done. So what kept them going?

OK. So a run by the sea and a few pebbles had brought clarity. I got it. I get it.

It doesn’t mean get rid of inspiration and motivation entirely. And it doesn’t really mean boredom. At least that’s how I’m reading it. It means keep to your passion. And don’t be overtaken by dreaming about the big inspiring end goal. It means pick your battles, focus down — keep focused on those little things — the things that you can’t get carried away with but keep you on track. Your passion IS the small stuff — it is the things that do because it’s the right thing to do. Because your passion keeps you honest and keeps you plugging away.

My big dream and inspiration? To have a wonderful thriving business that empowers people — that offers individuals the chance to benefit from the unique qualities of the beach to improve their lives.

My passions? My family’s health and wellbeing, the daily wonder of the beach, the skills and life reflections I find in beach volleyball and the empowering, life-enriching possibilities created by coaching. And herein may lie boredom — routine and drills and writing and marketing and study — but it’s not purposeless, valueless boredom as I would recognise it.