Other times meeting that commitment means making it look like you’re there when you haven’t shown up at all.

*This post written yesterday. I didn’t show up today – but still kept my commitment to posting a new post every weekday.

At times keeping that commitment means putting in the minimum effort. Just enough to meet the line. Maybe showing up is enough.

Sometimes you’ll be too busy to honour that commitment. Something comes along that needs your attention. Yet meeting that commitment should not be ignored. Strive to achieve it under the greater pressure. That’s how reputations are made.

What you do, you do. What you don’t do, you don’t. Neither can be changed.

That’s not to say you need fear failure or imperfection. Instead of fearing learn. Become better.

Sometimes even the positive things you do trap you. You could be in a cycle of good but because you’re passing up a bigger opportunity or avoiding the more important task it’s not helping you but harming you.

Learning is good. But learning to speak Spanish before a year in China won’t help you at all.

Reading is good. But reading a book instead of writing stops you from writing your own book.

Don’t catch yourself out by working on the wrong positive. It’s just procrastination.

Today is a holiday in Ireland. That’s an extra day on the weekend.

Yesterday the clocks changed. That was an extra hour in the morning.

Extras can be squandered. Use them wisely.

Writing something worthwhile is hard. There must be thinking before the words form on the blank in front of you.

So you wait for the words. You stare at the screen, or the page, and wait for the words.

Except it’s not waiting. It’s trying. You’re trying for words. Sitting trying to say something, to write something, to find the words. That’s not waiting. That’s trying. But it doesn’t work.

It’s the staring that makes it difficult. The sitting. Don’t sit. Do something else instead. Something productive. Wash dishes. Mop the floor. Hang a shelf. Have experiences. See things. Do things. Become inspired.

Then sit. Then write. The blank waits for your words. You just need to find them. Don’t wait.

Waiting is demise and rot. Waiting is life not lived. Waiting is the start avoided. Waiting is chances missed. Waiting is time unspooled. Waiting is harvesting regret. Waiting is purpose lost. Waiting is the defiler of dreams.

Waiting is death. Death is waiting.

Go. Do. Start. Now.

Don’t wait.

Writing these posts often feels like panning for gold. Searching through dirt for the nugget that will keep me going for another day. The idea that will let me write something new today.

That wouldn’t be so bad if there was plenty of gold to be found. And there probably is – if I wasn’t panning for gold wrong. It’s like I keep going back to the same patch of ground over and over. Going in circles. Panning for gold where all the gold has already been found. I keep finding things that look like gold but are really only copies of the gold I’ve already found. Made from some cheaper material.

It’s a solvable problem. I need to stop walking in circles. Move to fresh ground or dig deeper.