Just show up.
The art of ensuring you get the work done
Since starting this Substack, I’ve been posting early on a Sunday morning where I live in central Europe. But with the print deadline for LtW#44 looming - it’s next week in fact - I didn’t find time to write something until yesterday and then I thought as I was already behind schedule, I’d try an experiment and post this later than usual. If this is a better or worse time for you, let me know (you can just hit reply to this email if that’s how you’re reading this). And if you don’t care either way, I’d still welcome hearing from you.
Anyway, on to the topic I’ve been thinking about: showing up.
Whether in running or business, showing up is the basis for future success. That sounds so simple. But the reality is that many people - me included - struggle with this idea. Often the problem isn’t never showing up (although that can be the case). The problem is showing up irregularly or inconsistently.
In running, consistency yields results far better than long periods of missed training and then going crazy. And I found this out to my cost in the Valencia marathon last year. If I look at my training log, I can see where I was travelling or felt overwhelmed with work and as a consequence missed days (or even a couple of weeks) of training. By the time the marathon rolled around, there was no way to make up the lost time. I went into the race undertrained and it all unravelled, just as expected, around the 32km mark.
The same is true in business. Showing up day after day, week after week, month after month has a compounding effect. Take the Like the Wind Notes emails. We’ve been sending a round-up of the favourite running stories we’ve seen every two weeks for years now. And there are currently thousands of subscribers, the vast majority of whom open the emails every time they land in their inboxes. It is a great way for us to stay in touch with runners around the world and is part of our central focus on storytelling, no matter the medium. Of course, when we started we had just a handful of email subscribers and a middling open rate. The difference has been showing up.
The magazine is the same. We’ll have been publishing stories in print for 11 years when LtW#44 comes out in early March. Four times per year. Every year for more than a decade. There’s no special tactics or secret sauce. We have just done our best quarter after quarter.
Looking back it is easy to say that what has made all the difference in business has been consistency. Same goes for running. When I ran my best times, it was off the back of eight or nine years of consistent training and doing 90% of the sessions I had in my plan. Now, after a similar length of time when my running has been inconsistent, I’m paying the price! But in the moment, consistency is hard. There are pressures - work, family, illness and so on - that make showing up hard.
What I have found works for me is setting the challenge at the bare minimum. So I’ll task myself with spending an hour at my desk working on one task today. If that is all I manage to do, then so be it. Or I’ll push myself to get my running kit on and go out for a 15 minute jog. If that is the total of the running I do today, that’s better than nothing. And in so many cases, what actually happens is that you catch a wave. One task on the to-do list becomes two, then three, then half a dozen and before you know it, it has been a really productive day. Pull on the running shoes and head out for 15 minutes, during which the fresh air and sun on your face (or rain, whatever) feels good and you end up doing the run or the session that was prescribed.
Of course, this is not very cool. The “bro” hustle culture promotes going full-tilt all the time. But everyone I know who attempts this full-gas approach, flames out every single time. They love the adrenalin until they get overwhelmed, burned out or (in the case of running) injured. Then it’s back to zero.
The compounding effects at work and in running are undeniable. The only thing required to tap into this seemingly magical unlock is showing up. Like writing this Substack … Late. But published!
Simon
Simon Freeman
Like the Wind publisher and wannabe consistency practitioner
Yep. I tend to think of setting a minimum target as a bit of a cop out but there's no denying it gets you started, and you'll probably do more than you intended or expected. Plus any progress is still progress.
Super relatable post! “Late but published” … also super relatable!