“We are always falling in love or quarreling, looking for jobs or fearing to lose them, getting ill and recovering, following public affairs. If we let ourselves, we shall always be waiting for some distraction or other to end before we can really get down to our work. The only people who achieve much are those who want knowledge so badly that they seek it while the conditions are still unfavorable. Favorable conditions never come.” ― C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory

For years I didn’t write because the time wasn’t right to write. Now I write every day, no matter what, and the words flow. It’s not ever about finding the perfect opportunity to do it, it’s about simply doing it. Always ship the work, as Seth Godin would put it.

So what of other things? When will the workouts be more consistent? When will the pergola be fixed? What of the broken window that’s been nagging? Life is full of things we say we’ll get to someday, when. Every one of these deferred promises pile up one atop the other on our mind, rising to the top, sliding downward for another promise until they are wrestled to the top again. A lifetime of deferred promises is no way to live a life. Do what must be done and throw the rest away.

“You can do anything, but not everything.” ― David Allen

Looking back, it’s clear that momentum plays a big part in where we are now. We are what we repeatedly do and all that. Does that make it excellent or merely routine? Repetition for its own sake can be our salvation or our ruin. If I only write when conditions are perfect for writing this blog would be published every month or two, maybe with a longer break while I took care of some other things. Perhaps that would result in better content, but I should think it would mostly result in lost momentum and another promise broken. Do the work, whatever the situation, and ship it.

The thing to defer is the excuse. I’ve promised myself many times that I’ll stop writing this damned blog over and over again when things get hectic or I’m on a vacation or I’m amongst friends and family and the time used for writing feels better served elsewhere. What’s one day off from the routine? Ultimately I push something out anyway, just to check the box, written in a hurry on my Jetpack phone app and most definitely not perfect. Tomorrow I can quit this routine, just not today.

Which leads back to that pile of promises weighing me down, nestled just so on the back of my mind. There’s a distinct loss of stability when we become top heavy. The answer is to shed ourselves of the things that don’t matter all that much in favor of the things that matter a great deal. Break down the latter into manageable bits and chip away at them no matter what.

“Every action you take is a vote for the type of person you wish to become. No single instance will transform your beliefs, but as the votes build up, so does the evidence of your new identity. This is one reason why meaningful change does not require radical change. Small habits can make a meaningful difference by providing evidence of a new identity. And if a change is meaningful, it is actually big. That’s the paradox of making small improvements.” — James Clear

At some point we look back and realize that we’ve been doing that thing we promised ourselves we’d do for a good long time. It dawns on us that it’s become part of our identity, not just empty promises but clear examples of who we’ve become. Something as simple as reading and writing and taking a walk every single day make a huge difference over time. We simply must begin and persist in perpetuating the myth on our hero’s journey to whom we will become.