My Grind Towards Consistency
So, I’ve been trying this thing lately. You know how it is, you finish your main work, and you’re just totally drained. But I had this side project, something I really wanted to do. The problem? My energy was all over the place.
Some days, bam! Full of ideas, typing away like crazy. Felt great. Then the next day? Nothing. Absolutely zero drive. Staring at the screen, feeling like a complete waste. It was frustrating as hell. It felt like peaks and valleys, super high or super low, nothing steady.
It reminded me a bit of watching Frances Tiafoe play tennis. One minute he’s hitting unbelievable shots, got all this energy, charisma, the crowd loves him. The next minute, maybe a few unforced errors. You see the potential, the fire, but sometimes it doesn’t click smoothly all the way through. But the guy keeps battling, you know? He doesn’t just fold.
I thought about that. Maybe consistency wasn’t about being 100% perfect every single day. Maybe it was about something else.
Putting in the Reps
So, I decided to change how I approached my project. Here’s what I started doing:
- Just Show Up: I made a rule. Every single day, after my main job, I had to sit down and work on the project. Even if it was just for 15 minutes. No excuses. Just open the file, do something.
- Focus Small: Instead of thinking about the huge finished thing, I just focused on the very next step. Write one paragraph. Fix one bug. Make one small graphic. Tiny goals.
- Noticed the Pattern: I started just noting down how I felt and what I got done. Yeah, the ups and downs were still there. Some days were way better than others. Seeing it written down made it feel… normal? Less like a personal failure.
- Finding the Spark: I remembered watching Tiafoe. How he seems to feed off the energy, how he keeps that intensity. I thought, maybe I need to find my own spark. So, I started playing music I liked while working. Sometimes I’d take a 5-minute walk before starting, just to clear my head. Celebrated the tiny wins, like finishing even a small task. Sounds silly, but it helped a bit.
The Realization
There was this one evening, I was totally exhausted. Really close to just skipping it. Thought about Tiafoe again, how he fights for points even when he’s down. I told myself, “Okay, just 10 minutes. Just open the damn thing.”
I did. And those 10 minutes turned into 30. I didn’t solve world hunger or anything, just tweaked a few lines of code. But I did it. I showed up.
And that’s what clicked for me. This “constant tiafoe” idea, for my little project, wasn’t about being constantly brilliant. It was about being constantly present. Constantly trying. Keep turning up, keep swinging, even if it’s not your best day. The energy isn’t always high, the results aren’t always amazing, but the effort? That needed to be constant.
My project isn’t finished yet. But it’s moving. It’s slow, yeah, sometimes messy. But it’s moving forward because I keep showing up. It’s not about perfection, it’s about persistence. Just keep grinding. That’s my takeaway from this whole thing.
