Here’s something else I’ve learned in this year of writing something every day:
To be your best, you’ve got to be willing to work through the worst
Said another way, you just have to get through a lot of “not your best” work to produce quality work. In fact, the likelihood that the large percentage of writing I’ve done this year is average at best is pretty high. But there have been days when I knew that what I wrote was the absolute best that I could produce.
But you don’t experience those really good writing days without a commitment to simply write, even if that simple writing isn’t the best.
We have a human tendency to avoid the worst at all costs, and yet working through the worst is the very price of greatness. If 10,000 hours of doing something is required to become an expert, then it’s safe to assume that an overwhelming amount of those hours are marked by trial, error, struggle, and perseverance. It’s the very presence of those opportunities to quit that makes achievement so special.
