Starting in 2018, I have been writing nearly every day, for almost 1,000 days (on Linkedin, Quora, HabitStrong blog).
Writing per se was not the hard part. The challenge was to keep writing DESPITE the ups and downs, and the thousand different moods one goes through.
And here is what I learned: You can achieve this level of consistency with any activity only if you can do it on the worst possible day.
During this period, on some days, I went through hell — e.g., when my startup was running out of cash and we had no money to pay salaries.
Yet, through all of that, I kept writing. I told myself that I don’t have to like it, I just have to do it.
But, don’t you need motivation?
You do need motivation to get started — for me, it was motivating to see people reading and responding to my writing. But what sustains you is the habit you build, by doing the activity again and again, until your brain gets rewired.
And one day, you can do the activity even if you feel half-dead, like a zombie. Then, nothing can stop you.
You have to love doing what you do, but on really bad days, love may not not enough. You need something more.
You need that zombie-like grit. That is how you do anything for 1,000 or 10,000 days.
– Rajan