“Consistency is more important than perfection.”
53+ Weeks. 53+ Articles. 5.3K+ Views.
That has been my storytelling journey over the past year. In a tiny nutshell. But there is so much more to it than just the alliterative quantification. A year ago, I decided to write more. This is one of the things that brings me overwhelming satisfaction while being overtly scary and therefore, I knew this was something important that I couldn’t let go. So, I started my own blog. And with it came the knee-buckling anxiety to keep up with it. My usually brainstorming for a blog seemed to follow a typical path.
A sense of purpose – When you feel all eager and ready to roll in the beginning (I am going to change the whole damn world!)
A sense of struggle – When you want to write, and you know you should write but you still don’t/can’t write (I really should first see this 10 min long blooper reel and I have already seen 3 times)
A sense of disinterest – When you just don’t get that inspiration or light bulb moment (Hitting your head – or sometimes the laptop – against the wall)
A sense of doubt – When you start thinking if you are even good enough (Scrolling through the feed and realizing you are basically playing with crayons while everyone has moved onto watercolors)
A sense of awakening – When you shut out all the hesitation and…just write (I am here, I am in the moment, and I will let my thoughts flow)
A sense of relief – When you are finally done, and it feels like you have achieved salvation (Patting your back at 2am because you managed to finish a piece without flirting with YouTube)
A sense of contentment – When you ultimately put it out in the world, hoping that it touches at least one person (Going back to see likes/views on a post but then not really caring because you at least wrote it)
And back to a sense of purpose…
I went through this cycle every single time I wanted to write something – for a whole year. I started my blog all gung-ho, thinking that I will become a bespectacled author in a matter of weeks, churning out literature pearls at the drop of a hat. At the beginning, I aimed to write at least 2-3 times a week, with regular bite-sized pieces for each platform separately, and oh, also maybe throw in some freelance work? Yeah, let’s do it all and do it all perfectly.
I quickly realized the truth – IT. IS. HARD.
The real test of your ability, be it writing, singing, coffee-making bread-baking, business-churning, is not that you do it the best in the world, it is that you do it consistently. It doesn’t matter if it’s good or bad or ugly, just do it. So, I decided that I will write at least one every week. It doesn’t have to be great, it doesn’t have to be something amazing, but I will just write. Even if it is an Instagram post or LinkedIn rant or Facebook reshare or Blog draft. I will take out 5 mins and I will motivate myself to do something I love because even the most loved things take effort.
And I know this consistency is age old advice that we have been receiving and I also know that it sometimes just doesn’t work. On those days, I used to search for one of my old pieces that I had written long time ago and at least published that. Just reading through my previous work sometimes spurred in me a sense of purpose (mostly because I was appalled at the level of my writing skills back then and furiously decided to write more to prove to myself that I can do better!)
But the point is that just those 5 mins of sitting down with something that you love to do, everyday, helps. This is what in the corporate parlance you call the 1% principle.
1365=1 but, 1.01365 = 37.78
Instead of settling down for the usual, challenge yourself to go just a little beyond. Just doing 1% more everyday compounds the impact you can make on your life. It doesn’t have to be a 100% better, it just has to be.
And for those who are thinking that who has time between the calls and meetings and mails that we are daily bombarded with, well at least for me, I never did not have time. I just didn’t have the audacity to challenge my complacency. So, figure out what is the real reason you aren’t doing what you are supposed to. What is stopping you? What is stopping you from choosing consistency over perfection, choosing every day over some day.
