Showing Up Consistently and Using Brute Force

July 13, 2017

As I sit here and write this post, I'm experiencing resistance. 

I don't really want to write at the moment....and my brain is masterful at providing me with seemingly justifiable reasons and rationalizations as to why I can just put this off until tomorrow.

"You have nothing good to say, do some more reading and you can just write tomorrow"...

"One day won't matter, take it easy... you've had a hard week"

"You've been writing every day for the past few weeks, one day off won't matter"

Of course, I don't always feel like this - some days come way easier than others.  

On the one hand I know that writing this piece of content is the right thing to do, but on the other hand I don't really want to.

This battle of wits seems to occur to everyone, yet some people seem to have the ability to feel the resistance and plough ahead anyway.

Why is that?  And what are they doing differently?

Well, they tend to have a habit system.

But, even with a habit system, no matter how much you streamline your environment, put in place traps, implement minimum commitments and build up momentum... sometimes you still have to brute force it.  

Sometimes you just gotta show up, whether you like it or not. 

This is More than Just a Piece of Writing

My brain is right, if I don't sit down and write this piece of content, the world will carry on, the sun will come up tomorrow morning and it won't really matter.

But, to me, this matters... a lot.  

It's not about words on a page...it's about my ability to do things that I don't feel like doing in the moment because I know that it will serve me well in the long run.  

Writing this blog post is a means of deliberately practicing that skill.  It's an opportunity for me to exercise my ability to manipulate my animal brain.  

The famous metaphor of the rider and the elephant is particularly prevalent here:-

So, here, this is me showing up to write for another day...Brute forcing it.

My habit system has another victory to add to its ever increasing pile of victories.

Each victory is like a heavy set at the gym; We don't always want to do it, and we don't always enjoy it, but we ultimately get stronger and can handle more weight the next time it matters.  (Caveat: If you're brute forcing too much, you'll eventually fail).

The other, probably more important point is this: Doing hard things makes us happy.

What have you done that you didn't want to do today?

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