What Keeps Me Going?
This is what I do per day every day
Failure is when you stop playing the game.
Most of my friends, fellow creators, and other writers I knew directly or indirectly have quit writing online without actually trying it for 12 months.
What could be the reason?
To be honest, I don’t know the exact reason, and I never asked them about it. But I can say, there isn’t one particular reason why someone quit the work they do — the exact work they thought was fascinating a while ago!
For instance, quitting something because:
- Not finding enough time to write
- Not seeing any progress or results
- Not having enough motivation to keep writing
- And there could be millions of reasons, just like these!
Whatever the reason is but one this is consistent and permanent. You ask: What’s that? ROI. Yup, that’s it. If we do something, we expect to get something out of it. We expect to get results from it. But when we don’t see the ROI (Return on investment) — that’s when we quit.
- Walking 10,000 steps per day but still not feeling good? You’ll quit.
- Going to the GYM for the last 90 days and still not seeing results? You’ll quit.
- Trying to make money online but nothing seems to work out? You’ll quit.
- Trying to find your life partner but keep getting rejected? You’ll quit.
Most people don’t have enough patience to “Wait” until things start giving the ROI. And sometimes the “Thing” we expect to get fast results from actually ends up making us pathetic by not giving us the ROI we want.
But let’s face it: Every good thing takes time to come. The thing that comes easily often goes quickly. So I guess, the longer you wait for the “ROI” you want, the better it is for you to retain it. At least this is what I think.
And let’s be honest, I ain’t got massive success writing online, but just a little more than those writers who quit writing online a while ago.
I think this is where the big difference comes.
I literally take writing as a long-term game. I’m not doing it for 5 or 10 years but for the rest of my life. So me looking at the ROI I’m getting right now doesn’t make any sense.
Because I think, if I can continue to play this game for the next 5 or 10 years, I will definitely have the success (ROI) I want, but to get the ROI, I must be playing it — slow or fast — no matter what.
This is the reason I keep playing it, while my friends have quit writing online because maybe they expected to get results quickly — to make quick money, to get success quickly, which didn’t happen. And as a result, they quit.
The second reason that keeps me going is my surroundings.
To be clear: I’m not from the UK or USA or any kind of these First World countries, but from India — makes it hard for me to find like-minded people (for many reasons, like most people aren’t doing the thing I’m doing, etc).
So how do I surround myself with like-minded people?
Online. I don’t network but what I actually do is consume, read, and study other writers/people’s work who have done exceptionally well in the writing or business industry.
I read blog posts, I watch YouTube videos, I listen to podcasts, and I read books. I follow the people I like or admire on Twitter and bookmark their tweets.
I’ve been doing it for literally 12 months and it always keeps me motivated and encourages me to do more, to work more. Not to mention, most of my time goes to learning, exploring new things, and finding unique ideas.
This has worked for me, might work for you too, take it or leave it.
