Feel The Fear, Do It Anyway: The 100 Day Project

A few weeks ago, my friend Jeanne sent me one of Seth Godin’s blog posts she thought I might like. I did like it.

I liked it a lot, in fact.

Not just the content, although I loved this line: “You can bring more generosity of spirit, more enthusiasm, more kindness, more resilience, more positive energy, more bravery and more magic to the room than anyone else, at least right now. Because you choose to.”

What I loved about it was that it was a quick, short insight. It wasn’t a long blog post with lots of bullet points or links or in-depth explanations. It wasn’t an “article.”

He didn’t have to share it. 

But he did. 

I liked that…a lot. 

It reminded me of how I felt when I first started blogging. In fact, I often reference this coconut water blog post I wrote in 2008 (but please, ignore the broken image links and the random wordpress.com ads and the fact that I linked to a wikipedia page about coconut water (and it doesn’t open in a new window). Hahahaha! Yikes. Cringe. We all gotta start somewhere right!?)

At the time, I had just found coconut water, I was amped on it, and I shared 1 paragraph about it on my blog. That was it. But this was the essence of how I blogged, and it was so much fun. When I read Seth’s blog, I remembered that.

I subscribed to Seth’s blog and over the next few days I realized something else profound. He posts a blog every single day. 

When I figured that out, I knew…

He is doing this as a practice for himself as a writer. And it’s a powerful one. 

On Blogging Daily

I don’t know Seth, but I would assume he doesn’t jump out of bed every day with incredible inspiration and blog posts just begging to be written. He blogs every day as a PRACTICE. As a DISCIPLINE. To nurture himself as a writer.

After I figured this out, I started Googling “Seth Godin’s writing tips” immediately because I wanted to hear it straight from him. I found tons of excerpts and quotes about his daily blogging.

This quote was my favorite (found it on Seth Godin Explains Why You Should Blog Daily)

“The daily blog…it’s one of the top 5 career decisions I’ve ever made.

I don’t need anyone’s permission. I don’t need to go out and promote it. I don’t use any analytics. I don’t have comments. It’s just: this is what I noticed today and I thought I’d share it with you.

Are you able, every day, to say one thing that’s new that you can stand behind?”

The answer is, for me, yes.

He also goes on to say (from that same post) 

“Everyone should write a blog, every day, even if no one reads it. There’s countless reasons why it’s a good idea and I can’t think of one reason it’s a bad idea.”

If you know you have to write a blog post tomorrow…about something in the world, you will start looking for something in the world to to write about. You will seek to notice something interesting and to say something creative about it.”

The 100 Day Project

Another thing that’s been happening lately is I’ve been noticing my blog designer Allie posting styled photographs every day with the hashtag #The100DayProject.

The project is simple – pick a creative project and do it for 100 days. That’s it.

Again – a practice. A discipline.

Every time I would see one of her posts, I thought, “I should do this with writing…”

Of course, I’ve been following it since the beginning and now she’s on Day 96 (the project – info here – started officially in April). This is how long it’s taken me to actually take action on my initial desire. Kinda insane. I don’t know if you’re anything like me, but I need more than a few “signs” usually, to make a decision. I need somewhere between 10 and 10,000 breadcrumbs leading me, until it’s too obvious to ignore.  

Message From The Float Tank

When I go into the float tank, I often emerge with crystal clear clarity about what I need to do next. It is, hands down, THE BEST TOOL I’ve found for gathering answers and insights. Everything quiets down, everything gets so clear. It’s incredible.

Once in awhile, I’ll have visualizations inside the float tank. Often, I’ll get STRONG messages that I can’t ignore.

Yesterday, I went into the float tank and I started thinking about the 100 Day Project and I couldn’t get it out of my head. The tank took me into a crazy visualization trip where I saw myself in 2 different lives. 

In the first life, I continued on as usual. Saying all the time how much I loved writing, how I’d love to write a book one day, but not cultivating the discipline to write every day. Having moderate success and moderate creative output, enjoying my life – but never feeling satisfied with the creative work I was doing. Always having that gnawing in my belly. Never really writing the way I knew I could be writing, never getting out of bed with laser-focused purpose. Keeping most of my insights to myself.

In the second life, I made the commitment to publish blogs for 100 days straight.  I was terrified to commit to it, but I saw myself in that life waking up each day with purpose, with a mission. I saw insights pouring out of me, like waterfalls of light through my fingers into the keys. I saw myself honoring my creativity for the shining brilliance that it is. I saw myself creating a life that had a TIDAL WAVE of inspiration and output and discipline, becoming crystal clear on book ideas and writing them, exciting new opportunities arising, creating recipes and photographing them, and most of all – smiling, laughing, and feeling like I was doing work I was proud of and meant to do. Every single day.

That second life, I knew…it is available to me immediately. But it will require discipline and action. 

I got out of that tank and I knew, of course, it had to happen.

My Biggest Block To Writing

The truth is, there is only ONE reason I have that could hold me back from blogging daily. It’s not that I don’t have the time, or the content. It’s my moods. And that’s something I’ve been fighting and working through for a long time. And because of that, I’m obsessed with researching mental health and neurotransmitter function and brain chemistry. More on that surely to come in the next 100 days.

I texted Jeanne this:

“I have insights or learnings I share in conversation daily and there’s no good reason whatsoever not to share them on my blog, besides the fact that I get moody, anxious, overwhelmed, rebellious, and depressed. And those reasons are f*cking me over.”

If you struggle with this (does anybody not..?) you understand. It is a fierce battle, but it’s not one that I am willing to let take me under.

To ground it into my head even more, I opened up my Daily Stoic Meditation book (which is proving to be an incredible tool for me to get into action and not let my emotional state affect my work) for July 8 and read this:

JULY 8: STOP MONKEYING AROUND

“Stop monkeying around! Why are you troubled? What’s new here? It’s the same, whether you’ve examined these things for a hundred years, or only three.” 

And it goes on to say that if you don’t develop character and self-respect and take ownership of your own life… “Your gifts will be irrevocably wasted through sloth or cowardice or carelessness. You’re so much better than that.”

That was the final straw for me. I opened up my computer and I got to writing.

Feeling The Fear And Doing It Anyway

I know that saying “feel the fear and do it anyway” is a bit cliché, but I’m feeling it hardcore right now. I don’t “want” to do this project, but I know I have to do it, I can’t ignore all the direction I’ve been getting.

I have a pit in my stomach thinking about doing it for 100 days and overcoming my mental & emotional blocks and not letting them run the show. In fact, after I got out of the float tank and I knew in every fiber of my being that I had to do it, I came home and hid under a blanket.

But what I want most in the world is at stake if I don’t do this, and I can’t explain it any more than that. It’s a deep knowingness. I simply must do it.

So I’m starting today and I’m totally not ready.

I cried this morning because I was so scared to start. Scared of the commitment, scared of not being able to follow through, scared of actually doing the work it takes.

I said to Joel with tears in my eyes, “I don’t WANT to do this but I feel like I have to, I feel like it will transform me…I need to do it NOW, and I can’t really explain why. Have you ever felt that way?” 

He laughed. “Yes.“

Can’t keep putting it off. There’s no time to waste.

Here goes. :)

1/100. 

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