Showing Up

The first rule of doing work that matters 

Go to work on a regular basis. 

Art is hard. Selling is hard. Writing is hard. Making a difference is hard. 

When you're doing hard work, getting rejected, failing, working it out - this is a dumb time to make a situational decision about whether it's time for a nap or a day off or a coffee break. 

Zig Ziglar taught me this twenty years ago. Make your schedule before you start. Don't allow setbacks or blocks or anxiety to push you to say, "hey, maybe I should check my email for a while, or you know, I could use a nap." If you do that, the lizard brain will soon be trained to use that escape hatch again and again. 

Isaac Asimov wrote and published more than 400(!) books by typing nonstop from 6am to noon, every day for forty years. 

The first five years of my solo business, when the struggle seemed never-ending, I never missed a day, never took a nap. (I also committed to ending the day at a certain time and not working on the weekend. It cuts both ways.) 

In short: show up. 

(From Poke The Box by Seth Godin)

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