I just read an article by Jack McDade that got me thinking about finding joy in what you do / are, ignoring FOMO and not giving up on things too soon if you don’t see results quickly. This is something I’ve been pondering more over the last year or so, and I think I’ve made some progress with it – and equally have a long way to go.
On a side note, I love that Jack’s posts almost always make their point through storytelling. I hope to be able to write that effectively one day.
The world we live in is built on pushing the next big, shiny thing that will make your life better in some way… that’s out of date in 6 months time, replaced by something “even better” that makes the other thing you just learnt to use / bought pointless… there a whole industries built on this premise.
I’ve found that when I do slow down and appreciate what I’m doing, or doing something in a simpler way, it’s much more fulfilling than chasing the hype train of new technologies / tools / processes / items. And what’s more, the results are often as good or even better than what would have been created using the “next big thing”.
Jack reminds us that “Things take time” in his post and really gets you thinking about this with a few questions like this one:
What would it look like if you decided to give your product/project/channel/blog/newsletter a full year of attention and planning before you made any judgments about its success? What about 3 years? 5?
Jack McDade
Its kind of why I started posting on my own site more last year. Rather than waiting until I had time to research and write a 2000 word, search engine optimised essay, I decided to just start writing about things that interest me. They don’t have to be long (like this post), I just have to prioritise putting my thoughts down and hitting publish. The rest will figure itself out over time.