One of the best feelings is when you have no idea what you’re doing and somehow, you’re just glad you did it.

Do you know what I’m talking about?

It’s the same feeling when you have little money and invest it in index funds. When you check back a few years later, you see how much money you gained.

It’s that feeling when you play the piano every day, and when you look at yourself a few weeks later, you’re amazed that you can play the piano.

It’s that feeling when you’ve been working with a company for years and start training a new employee, then you realize how much you know.

Sometimes, you just have to decide to do it (if you know that it will be good for you). Then stick to it.

That’s what happened when I wrote 52 letters in 2024. 

Here are 5 lessons I’m bringing to 2025:

The beginning is both the hardest and the easiest.

When you are first starting to lift weights at the gym, a 5lbs of weight can feel like 100lbs.

Why?

Because you don’t have the strength and the muscles to do it.

But do you know the good thing about being a complete beginner?

It's easy to make progress.

It's easy to go from 5lbs to 20 lbs.

It is a lot harder to go from 20lbs to 35lbs - even though you are already gaining strength and muscle.

The same way goes for writing or any habit you are building.

The generation of ideas is hard in the beginning because the brain is like a muscle. You need to train it. But also, this isthe easiest and fastest phase of progress.

Going from 0-1 is easy.

And everybody can easily go from 0-5.

Going from 5-10 is a different story.

It’s not 52 reps, it’s 52 iterations.

My first 52 newsletters suck.

I am willing to admit that because I can see that in my stats.

I am not gonna lie. Sometimes, I question whether I am doing the right thing or whether this is worth it.

Nothing is happening.

They said that if you have a newsletter, you can nurture your audience, you can sell better, etc. etc. etc.

But again, nothing is happening.

And as I went along, I found out that it’s not only the reps that matter. It’s the iteration.

There are a lot of questions I can ask myself whenever I get a higher open rate on one email vs the rest:

What happened there? How can I replicate that headline? How can I write about this specific topic again? How long/short was my headline? Did I use a subheadline?

You can’t iterate if you don't let the sh*tty posts out first.

The difference between good work and excellent work is based on how much time and effort you spend on it.

This might be obvious but it’s the #1 reason why you’re not proud of your work.

You expect things to be easy. 

You think that spending 30 minutes writing a newsletter will get you the same results as that person you watched on YouTube (who, by the way, has been writing for 30 years).

There’s a quote I always heard in high school that got stuck with me:

If you want to do a good job, spend a little more time on it. Spend a little more effort on it. Polish it a few more times.

Not that many people focus on quality.

Stop focusing on consistency

When 2024 started, I set the intention to write one newsletter per week.

I planned to write for 1-2 hours on Friday morning and edit for another hour on Saturday morning.

But life always gets in the way. 

I workout on Thursday night. Sometimes, I see some friends at the gym. We talk longer than expected. I go to bed late. And on Friday morning, it’s raining and my bed feels warm.

That’s all it takes to ruin the plan.

Having an intention is much better.

I told everyone on social media I would do it – it kept me accountable.

So I will do everything I can to publish the newsletter at 7AM on Sunday.

When I come home from work and the gym at Friday night, I would get on my desk and type whatever came to my mind because my brain wasn’t working at this point.

Somehow, I got it to work. 

Nobody cares — and that’s a good thing.

My open rate was only around 20%.

Yet in my head, I think that people actually pay attention. They would know if I didn’t publish at 7 AM. They would know if I already talked about this topic in previous newsletters. They would wait for my next letter.

I think about that whenever I write and just before I hit publish.

But the truth is that there’s nothing to be terrified about because nobody cares.

For all you know, people just happened to click that post at the moment because you had a decent deadline and they were bored while waiting in line to order their coffee.

Do you know what’s great about that?

You can make mistakes.

Plenty of them.

Don’t you like that feeling? 

It’s like when you are learning how to ride a bike and you know that nobody is paying attention so you can fall off without worrying that you look stupid.

And when you can finally ride with your hand off the handlebar, people start to notice.

You can build momentum by having something tangible.

Building a business is similar to building a life you love. 

Life feels meaningless when you have no idea what to do. You just go with the flow. You have no destination in mind. You feel a lack of purpose because you’re not working towards something.

In business and writing online, it seems pointless to just be publishing into the void.

I know because I’ve tried publishing on blogs to no avail. I tried writing on social media every day but I stopped every few weeks or so. I questioned myself what I was doing.

I thought that somehow if I keep putting in the reps, I’ll find opportunities. People will reach out to me. I’ll wake up one day with an epiphany. I’ll have a great story to tell, etc.

That’s bullsh*t.

The fun starts when you start a project.

When you can see that you have a newsletter page, your library of content is growing, you are starting to get subscribers, albeit slowly, that's where momentum starts.

It doesn't matter what it is -- just build something and treat it as your life's project.

The result would almost not matter in the end. What matters is how you get there.

Every morning when I wake up, I like to pretend I’m a writer.

I wake up from the ray of sunshine on my windows, I make my coffee and sit on my desk as ideas come to mind.

Then I would start writing with a timer.

By the end of my session, I would have something ready to be published.

The moment I hit publish, I become a writer. It doesn’t matter how many people read. Whether I get 0 views or 1000 views, I am a writer.

And if I do this for 365 days, or 2 years, or 5 decades, I will undoubtedly change from the person I used to be several years ago.

Just like what they say, the journey is the destination.

Ready to build online?

Book a coaching call with me and we can create a roadmap together (I’ll walk you through everything you need in 4 weeks).

See you next week!