Over the past two days, I’ve read Jonathon Mead’s (free so check it out if you like) ebook, The Zero Hour Workweek. The gist of his book is to do what you love so you never feel like you’re working (with some practical tips to pull it off).
I disagreed with a couple points he made, but I’d only like to highlight one here.
Jonathon proposes, for blog writers anyway (but I think he would apply this to anyone producing value), to not write if we’re not going to write something remarkable.
As a blogger, even if I love my topic, there will come times when I won’t feel like writing, when I won’t think I can write anything amazing. At this point, Jonathon says not to write. I say write.
Jonathon encourages us not to write at this point because if we do write, we’re only contributing to the noise. I say contribute to the noise. Specifically, I say contributing consistently is often more important than contributing amazingly.
This goes against a lot of advice I’ve read lately, not just Jonathon’s, perhaps most notably a favorite of mine, Seth Godin’s (or perhaps he would agree with me?).
Here’s why I say contribute anyway. Ninety-five percent of success is… showing up. Wannabe successful people like to say that all the time. But if we really believe it, that showing up really is 95% (or more) of success, then we’d all see why Jonathon’s advice is flawed.
Showing up in and of itself is amazing. By simply contributing to the noise ALL THE TIME you’ll break through the noise.
Why? Because so few show up ALL THE TIME.
If you let off one day, saying, “I’m not going to contribute because I can’t offer anything remarkable,” it’s no big deal. But the next day, it’ll be just a bit harder to write. And if you say it the next day, the third day will be just a bit harder to write than that second day.
Two months down the road, you’re so out of practice that even if you had an amazing idea to write about, you couldn’t make it amazing because your writing skills have deteriorated.
It’s a slippery slope, I know. But in practice, it’s very real. So I say again contribute anyway.
I’m not saying lower your standards. I’m not saying be boring. I’m saying be amazing, and when you can’t be amazing, show up anyway.
