A signed job contract means you show up a certain number of days a week for certain hours. It is your profession.
For a side project to give rewards, you have to show up at a fixed regular commitment: writing, podcasting, gardening, or music. You have to keep up the work.
To succeed in something the commitment is no longer a question. You have to do it.
It’s not even that bad. You don’t have to work every day or even every week:
You can do seasons with long breaks in between.
You can publish once a month.
Your schedule is up to you, but you have to commit to it.
“When I feel like it” = Never
Doing things when you feel like it without the pressure is a lovely idea in principle. Be warned that time inevitably goes much faster than you expect.
When people stop taking music lessons they often promise themselves they’ll still play. “I’ll do it when I get the time, or you know, just when I feel like it”.
Years later the instrument lies hardly touched….
Waiting for your fancy to take you somewhere is like waiting for muscles to appear without working out.
Finding time for something is never done for you.
If you are too busy this week, next week someone will not magically make that time appear for you. The only person that will do it is you.
My own dirty laundry
For the past year, writing has been my hobby, a retreat from the chaos of ADHD and the overwhelming multitude of other projects. I do it when I find the time.
Thus this newsletter has been a little happy, to say the least.
Fun stats from 7 months since this newsletter started:
Published - 15
Completed - 5 (not published due to feeling they’d be part of a series)
Almost ready - 24
In progress - 19
Basic outline - 22
Not started - 27
No status - 27
Memes, wars and dictators - 9 (a random other series on psychology and humanity)
So I published 15 and there are another 133 articles at different levels of finished. All of these posts I felt were great ideas that lie unloved and unknown. I would be a much wiser and more prolific person if I was publishing them…
Dream it —> Do it
The speed that anyone can have ideas for things is astounding.
We need regular practice where the action is taken to turn those ideas into reality. Otherwise, we are just dreamers.
What you should dwell on is which things in your life are in the hobbyist / dreamer category? Then ask these questions:
What do you need to do to become a doer?
What do you need to stop doing to prioritise this?
Would a change of scenery / schedule make this easier?
What can I regularly commit to going forwards?
I’ll always be a dreamer. I’d like to nudge more of my dreams into reality.
And this is my nudge to you to make your dreams happen.