Last week I listened to the first episode of the Full Stack Whatever podcast. One of the topics was around consistency and why we stick to some projects more than others. Their main point was that we should be focusing much more on the action of doing something rather than chasing an outcome.
Listening to the podcast, made me stop and reflect on my own experience. The times when I’ve managed to establish consistency were the times when I was getting something out of the process itself. With coding, it was about getting the satisfaction of solving a problem and receiving immediate feedback on the screen. With writing, it’s the feeling of being able to express my thoughts clearly.
The times when I tried to do something because I wanted to achieve a certain outcome, always resulted in burnout and failure. I have tried creating a working out habit for years now, and yet I have always failed to establish any sort of consistency that goes beyond 5-6 months. And it all comes down to the fact that the process is not that fun. Actually it’s not fun at all. Working out doesn’t bring me the rush I am looking for and eating 3000 calories a day, every day, is categorically not fun.
I guess it sounds obvious - you can’t get to the end, without enjoying the in-between. The issue is that we all want to become someone. A writer, a reader, a gym-goer. But are we having fun while we are writing, reading or going to the gym?
Maybe we should focus a bit more on the verbs and not so much on the nouns.