Happy GoodFriday!
Here's something I heard, thought, and did this week.
Something I Heard: Defeat
“Until death, all defeat is psychological.”— Widely attributed to Marcus Aurelius, though there’s no source in Meditations or anywhere else with this wording. Whoever said it was right.
I came across it in James Clear’s 3-2-1 newsletter, and it could not have landed at a better time given the week I’ve had.
Something I Thought: Ego
If you don’t do it, how will you ever learn?
That’s a question I’ve been asking myself, not anybody else.
I let my ego run the show more than I’d like to admit. I’ll have an idea for a video, start thinking it won’t be up to my standard, and never make it. If I put out something that sucks, that’s a hit I have to take. So I don’t put it out.
But that’s not a standard. That’s protection. And the thing it protects me from is the exact process that would make me better.
You can’t learn a thing you won’t attempt. You can’t get better at something you’re unwilling to be bad at first.
The videos I don’t post fail too. They just fail quietly.
Something I'm Doing: Deleting social media
The day before I read that quote, I quit social media.
Not a break. I decided I was done posting altogether and I deleted the apps off my phone.
The last four years of trying to market on social have been brutal, especially coming off what happened during Covid. It got to the point where it felt like nothing I did mattered. So I pulled myself out of it entirely rather than keep slogging through.
Then I spent the rest of that day feeling like a failure. Down, upset, not myself.
The next morning I decided to throw away the pity party and do something about it instead. I redownloaded the app. I posted that day. And later that afternoon I sat down and worked on something new with an idea I was actually excited about.
I didn’t read the quote until after all that. It didn’t change my mind. It just told me I’d made the right call.
I can’t control the algorithm. I can control my effort.
The defeat I was feeling wasn’t coming from the platforms. I was the one calling myself a failure.
Until next week!
-Cameron Harn
