Reasons Why I’m Not Effing Doing It
One of my dearest friends recently launched a new Substack. I received a text from her in the morning saying she was thinking about it, and when I got back from my hike a few hours later it was live. As always with these things, separate from the happiness and pride we feel for our friends, there is also what we make it mean about us.
Last summer I was about to start a Substack, and then did something else instead. For most of this year I have been planning to start one, going to the pool and rolling possible name ideas around in my head as I swam lengths, going over and over what might go there rather than here on the blog, what the focus and point is. I have devoted hours of thinking over a period of months to this Substack that does not exist. My friend just effing did it. Why am I not just effing doing it?
This isn’t just about a Substack. I’m “not just effing doing” anything. I’m not doing the writing I want to do, I’m not starting a new podcast, not making a freebie, not showing up with work. I feel like a queue is forming in my brain, piles of papers accumulating as ideas and needs waiting to be actioned while I seemingly busy myself with organising a list of the reasons nothing can be done yet. Here is that list:
It must be done properly and with purpose. It must be well thought out and part of a system and strategy that is leading somewhere, not just put up there and allowed to exist and make it’s own way in the world. I can’t start until I know EXACTLY the route it’s going.
It has to link to something in the future. I can’t write a blog post about x topic now because that would link well to a freebie I’m planning but I haven’t sorted that out yet so I can’t publish the blog. And I can’t do a Substack without coming up with a name that could also work as a future book title.
I’ve just moved. I’m allowed to not be doing all those grand plans I was putting off until after the move because I’ve only just moved.
It’s not the right time. There’s too much disruption and in three weeks I’m going on holiday so there’s no point starting anything now.
I don’t know the end result yet. I’m not 100% sure on exactly what my business model is going to be and I have some new ideas I want to maybe work on so I shouldn’t do anything publicly in case I look like a total mess who doesn’t know what she’s doing and I’ll just get everything perfect first.
Now, I have presented these with a bit of cynicism in my voice. But the trouble with these reasons is that when they’re in your head they are totally, completely reasonable. I was convinced of that moving one just yesterday, and part of me also still does believe them. Or wants to believe them. I want so much for it to be true that I shouldn’t be doing things because what I’m doing isn’t a million percent strategic and perfect. But I can’t believe it because I know that all these reasons are actually the same thing dressed up differently: fear.
Fear that I might try something and be disappointed by the result. Fear of the discomfort of making something happen. Fear that I will change my mind down the line. Fear of how it all looks and what people think. Fear of having not enough to give. Fear of fear itself.
It is the most annoying thing in the world to admit to yourself that all your reasons are fear because then you have to stop all the nice, comfortable organising and just effing do something. Because it’s one thing for fear to drive your action (or inaction); it’s another to knowingly let it. That’s where I draw the line: fear is a constant companion, but as soon as I notice we’ve switched seats and it’s now driving I have to pull on the handbrake and make it switch back.
And the way to do that is to just effing do something.
Just effing write the essay that I’ve been writing notes for since last year. Just effing put it on Substack. Just effing share my day on Stories. Just effing publish a blog post, and just effing write another one. Just effing do a fun freebie because it would be nice and not because it’s part of the world’s cleverest strategy. Just effing start.
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