When making progress feels like a slog

Going back to keep moving.

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Hey friend! 👋

So good to talk with you again.

It is a new month!… of April.

This is not a special edition but it IS a special Sunday.

And it is special because we’re back from the dead.

Main quest 🛡

A person picking up the guitar after months of not playing, another putting on their running clothes again, another going back to their desk with unfinished drafts.

What does all these people have in common?

Besides returning to their activities, they are making imperfect progress.

See, we’ve been taught that missing days, losing streaks, or going silent is a sign of quitting.

That if we do those things we’re “inconsistent”, we are lazy, or we just “don’t have it”.

And then it’s contrasted with that other type of people who never miss a day, are laser-like focused, and achieve goals like it was a regular Tuesday.

Well, not everyone can be a David Goggins kind of person.

But for the rest of us who are restarting streaks, picking back up habits, or going back to activities we did before…

We didn’t quit, we just made a temporary pause without realizing it.

I’ve seen several people online talking about “starting again” with an activity, like learning a language, learning to code, going back to writing, or practicing a sport.

In reality, you only can start once.

Every moment after that is “restarting”, (and it doesn’t take much to go back where you left off.)

Whenever you go back to something, you’re still making progress even if it’s not in the “ideal world” kind of going from start to finish.

Sometimes that progress feels slow, difficult, like you’re probably wasting time. Or the situations around make it pretty hard to keep going and be consistent.

So we stop making progress and think there’s something wrong with us for losing momentum or “dropping the ball”.

The reality, however, is that temporarily pausing something for whatever reason is not the same as quitting.

“Real quitting” is when we never go back to the activity. When the pull to return dissapears. When we stop caring and it’s no longer in our minds.

In that case, yes, we quit, we already moved on.

I’ve had that experience several times before as I’ve gone into many fields, tried lots of different activities, and found what really excites me and what’s a temporary curiosity.

As a matter of fact, I didn’t wrote anything here since the start of the previous month. And it’s not because I “ran out of ideas”. I’ve had lots on my plate to deal with.

I’ve been sort of like an octopus. Doing startup work, developing a personal project, dealing with family stuff and the daily chores when I didn’t have the help I had before.

Someone looking from the outside could say that I “quit”. I got busy, “life happened”, or maybe I found something else to do.

But like I said, the pull was still there, I never left. I just had 3 crazy weeks where my mind was just focused on prepping for a product launch and keeping the daily habits to not neglect health.

The Slog Reframe

Whenever making progress feels like a slog, like wading through thick mud, it’s not a sign that you’re doing something wrong, it’s a sign you’re more than halfway there.

That excitement of starting something new already went away. The real work is in keep going when it’s easier to stop and go do something different.

Restarting something is often more valuable because it can teach you what not to do this time. What different approach to take.

It often feels uncomfortable not because there’s something “wrong” with you.

It’s because you care. If there were not discomfort, it would meant you’re indifferent whether or not to restart. The pull is no longer there, you’re mind moved on.

But when you’re still thinking about the activity and even remember some moments hitting a goal or reaching a milestone, there’s still something around.

You can always go back to it.

You can restart, spend some time going back to where you left, and keep making progress.

In the end, no one gets bonus points for getting to the finish line in one go or by taking breaks along the way.

If it matters to you and helps you in some way, you can still go back to it. You haven’t quit yet, you were just taking some time to regroup for an even better comeback.

Experiments 🧪

This past 3 weeks or so, I’ve been experimenting with semi-autonomous workflows, learning from agentic systems and trying stuff out on my own.

In part, out of curiosity. But another part is out of real need and not finding anything that fits my particular way of working.

And since not only I want to keep doing the work I’ve done for the past months but also “restart” some projects I still think are good ideas… I need some extra hands.

The system that I’m building, I believe will be a real power-up for myself and I’m also excited for you to try it out (once is more non-technical user friendly)

To consider 🤔

If you could have a partner that can help you with one area of work (or more than one area), which area would it be?

I’m curious to know if it would be more for work or for life stuff?

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That’s it for this new week.

Happy Easter and happy Passover.

Hope you had a great time.

Catch you next week.

Cheers,

Juan.