Focus On Your Work, The Rest Will Follow
When I started writing, I had big dreams.
I imagined my content exploding and everyone congratulating me for my grand success.
I imagined my writing moving people to tears and motivating them to change their lives.
I imagined people e-mailing me and sending me letters, thanking me or asking me for advice.
None of these situations *probably* happened, but I understand why. I understand why and I’m satisfied with the answer.
When I started, my goal to become a writer was motivated by vanity and monetary reasons. I didn’t start writing because I loved to write and share my thoughts.
I wrote because I imagined that one day I would become as big and as influential as the other writers on Medium.
I wrote because I wanted to have thousands of followers who loved to read my content and thought of me as a smart person.
I wrote because I wanted to someday monetize my followers and make money so I didn’t have to get a 9–5 job.
Truth be told, if it’s a get rich or get famous fast scheme you’re looking for, writing a blog isn’t the best route to take. In fact, it’s probably one of the worst. You’d have better luck showing off your body or posting memes on Instagram.
When you focus only on things like fame and money, you tend to get impatient and sloppy. If no one reads your content even though you’ve been writing everyday for two months, you’ll give up.
You tend to be short-sighted, and you get frustrated easily. You’re not in it for the long run. You only look for shortcuts, and search for anything that will bring you quick results and reduce the amount you struggle and work.
If you want to live a healthy lifestyle, you would start working out and eating right instead of trying out the new craze that everyone is talking about: ketogenic diet, juice cleanse, intermittent fasting.
If you want to be a good writer, you would start writing and reading famous writers and learning the craft instead of reading blog posts, watching youtube videos and scrolling through reddit threads of “how to hack your blog growth to bring 100,000 followers!”
Who promised that you would see results in a few months? Why do you think you can maintain a nice body figure after a month of jogging on a treadmill? Why do you think people will flock to your blog posts when there are so many other high quality writers online and offline?
Let’s be brutally honest with ourselves. Have you ever committed to something for a full year? Have you ever kept your promise to yourself everyday, or were you constantly fitting in “cheat days” or “break days”, which ultimately end up destroying your good habits and bring back your bad habits?
If you want to achieve your wildest dreams, you have to set a plan for yourself, put your head down, and commit to the work.
Good things happen to those who wait, but the best things come to those who do.
You have to keep yourself so busy that you forget about the grand prize at the end. You have to improve yourself and work on your respective craft until you get good enough to provide enough value to earn money.
When you start seeing results, you have to ignore it. You have to stay away from inflating your ego and losing your focus. Set your goals higher every time you achieve your current goals.
You just got 100 followers on Medium? Cool, now go back to work and look up when it reaches 200.
You just got 100 fans to clap for you? Good, now go back to work and look when it reaches 200.
You take note of the small wins, and you celebrate quickly. On the flip side, you should also take note of your failures and learn from them.
Your blog post got rejected from 50 publications? Can you find out what could be wrong? Could you edit it a bit more? Is the content not suitable for the publication? Try everything you can and keep submitting. Find 50 more publications.
You received comments criticizing your work and telling you to stop writing? If it’s constructive, thank them and make sure you apply the things you learned in your next article. If they’re being rude, ignore them, because they are angry at their own inability to create work and are trying to drag you down to their level. Encourage people to criticize your work, and you’ll find that you’ll only get better.
Opportunities will come to you if you keep working hard on your craft. Until then, the only thing you can do is to keep your head down, focus on your work and be patient.
The Bhagavad-Gita tells us we have a right only to our labor, not the fruits of our labor. All the warrior can give is his life; all the athlete can do is leave everything on the field.
— Steven Pressfield, The War of Art
If you have to “feel” like working on something to be productive, you will never get anything done. Don’t give yourself a choice. Tell yourself that you have to do it, if you really want to achieve your goals. Even if you feel tired, depressed, lazy, sad or frustrated, you have to show up everyday.
Do the work and the rest will follow.
There really is no other way.
