Writing did not become a sudden passion or hobby of mine.

In fact, I never enjoyed writing when I was growing up, nor is it something I describe as a “passion”.

What writing is to me is a tool. I began writing because I saw it as a way to help myself improve.

An avenue to share my ideas with others, to have those ideas challenged, and to improve myself through feedback.

I love writing because it helps me build confidence, discover who I truly am, learn faster, and allows me to share ideas.

1. Confidence

Few things have had as large of an impact on my confidence and outlook as writing for one reason: Consistency.

The ability to be consistent, and gain compounding returns on your work, is the most powerful tool we have as humans.

I didn’t realize that I was truly capable of being consistent until I started writing.

As I saw the progress pile up, and my article list lengthen, I knew that I had the ability to accomplish any task I set my mind to.

That discovery is an incredibly powerful feeling, because you realize that anything is possible.

2. Self Discovery

We all have many versions of ourselves.

The person who we are when we’re with our the family.

The person we are when we spend time in friends.

The person that we bring to work every day.

And finally, the person that we are when we’re alone.

The thoughts and ideas you share with one group may not be the same. But they should be.

To align your thoughts, you need to discover who you truly are which can be a tough process. One of the best ways to do it though is to constantly put yourself out there.

Publish your ideas for everyone to see. When you do that, you can only be one person – Your true self.

3. Learning

Writing is a critical skill to learn and master for anyone who values communication, which in my opinion should be everybody.

The best way to learn anything is by creating a short feedback cycle.

Think about learning a basic skill like juggling. When you make a mistake, you drop a ball and immediately know what you did wrong.

The same goes with writing, but to get that feedback loop you can’t write in a vacuum.

You need to write out in the open. Publish your thoughts. Listen to people praise you. Critique you. Or most likely, ignore you.

Receiving feedback is the absolutely best way to improve.

4. Sharing

One of the greatest things about being human is our ability to share ideas.

At our current point in the history of the world, there are more ideas out there than any of us could ever consume.

So instead of coming up with completely new ideas (because that is next to impossible), the focus instead is around curating what is already out there.

Drawing lines between dots that people haven’t seen before.

Using a new method to express and old concept.

Sharing your own progress and your journey, so you can encourage and educate others.

The best thing about sharing ideas, is that people will reach back out and share their own.

If anything I wrote here resonates, let me know!

One of my good friends was recently throwing himself a “pity party” (his own words).

Here’s the situation he was in:

1. Working long hours. Easily 80+.
2. Had only taken 5 days off in the past 2 years.
3. Tried to ask for more. His company told him he was out of line.

Unsurprisingly, he works in finance. 

As somebody who previously started their career in finance, I know that the above is what is expected.

You get a large paycheck, but in turn you sacrifice ALL of your free time. It’s a career path that I specifically left because I was not willing to make that sacrifice (among other reasons).

Just because finance was not a fit for me though, doesn’t mean it’s a bad path to take. Overall he enjoys what he does, just not the long hours. Having been there myself, I had one piece of advice for him:

“You’ll never regret working hard, except if you miss an important life event.”

Thinking through this caused me to revisit an article I read a while back: Top five regrets in life.:

In summary, the top five regrets that people have when they die:

1. I wish I had the courage to live a life true to myself, not a life others expected of me.
2. I wish I hadn’t worked so hard.
3. I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings
4. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends
5. I wish that I had let myself be happier

Many of us are running towards, or away, from something in life.

It’s difficult to know whether you are on the right path in life.

We are not alone though, and there are many who came before us.

We can learn from their experiences, and hopefully avoid the same mistakes they did.

Life is long and it will change over time. Just keep it all in perspective.

Like most people, I’ve had some major vices in my life.

They are pretty common ones. Video games. Weed (aka Cannabis). Alcohol.

For the longest time I thought to myself, I’ll change this… tomorrow.

Tomorrow would turn into next week. 

Next week would turn into the next month, which would turn into next year.

This dragged on and before I knew it I had spent a decade overindulging in vices.

I wasn’t going off the deep end or anything, but I knew there were imbalances in my life.

And it was making me deeply unhappy. Which further caused me to use vices as an escape mechanism.

Only recently have I been able to change and it wasn’t through sheer force of will.

It was because I started this blog.

What Causes a Vice

I believe vices are caused by two things:

1. A desire for small dopamine hits
2. A desire to escape current reality

Shopping and social media provide dopamine, alcohol and drugs allow you to escape reality. Video games give you both.

Vices for many are a safe place that can help you forget your day-to-day worries.

Worries such as anxiety you feel about the future. Stress you take home from work.

Whatever might be bothering you that day.

This issue with vices though, is that they often create negative feedback cycles.

You avoid what might be bothering you, or you chase another small dopamine hit. None of these actions fix the long-term, underlying issue though.

It just pushes issues out of your mind temporarily. Whenever I fell into this cycle, I would always think to myself “I’ll give this up”.

That never worked though, and I only realized now why it was the wrong approach.

Why Giving Up Alone Won’t Work

It’s impossible to give up a vice through sheer willpower. That is because your willpower is limited.

For so long, I tried to get rid of my bad habits using the classic approach of sheer willpower.

I would make it a New Years Resolution to give something up.

I’d try and create social pacts with friends to quit.

None of it worked. That’s because there is only a finite amount of willpower.

Once it’s depleted and you’re having a bad day, the first thing you will go to is your vice

That is why instead of relying on willpower, you need to instead replace the vice with something else.

Find something to do instead on both your good days and your bad.

How To Identify A Replacement

Don’t follow your passion. Trying to follow a “passion” is like trying to get rich by buying lottery tickets. 

Instead, set goals to accomplish, ideally ones that you can only do by putting in the work every single day.

My two current goals?

1. Write 52-articles in one year on this blog.
2. Learn to code. The best approach is to code every single day. Ideally for at least one hour.

Here are the reasons why this works:

1. This requires a daily commitment of time. Your hours in the day are limited, so you will have to give up something. If you have other responsibilities (like a job), that means that usually the first thing to go will be your vice.

2. You will know at the end of each day if you are putting in the effort required to reach your goal. It creates an immediate feedback loop.

3. It relies on an inherent motivation to get better. If you are trying to give up a vice you already have this motivation, focusing on a replacement activity just channels your time in a more effective way.

Hope this was helpful. It took me way too many years to figure out, but I’m glad I finally did.