Showing Up IS the Success
It’s 8am on a Monday and I’m sitting here hosting our Working Writer writing sprint, coffee in hand, watching a little grid of faces open their project and start typing. Nobody’s talking. Everybody’s writing. And I know each one of these writers get it.
What is it? Consistency.
That’s the part nobody tells you about consistency. It’s not glamorous. It’s not a social media highlight reel moment. It’s just... showing up, again… and again, when the motivation isn’t there and the momentum has to carry you instead.
I’m reading Pitch Secrets A to Z by Forbes Riley right now, and I highlighted a line early on in the book… “Momentum compounds faster than motivation.”
I keep coming back to that.
Because motivation is what gets you to your first writing sprint. Momentum is what gets you to your fortieth. Motivation is loud and exciting and then it’s gone by Wednesday. Momentum is quiet. It’s the thing that’s already in motion, so all you have to do is keep it moving… even on the mornings you’d rather do anything else but show up.
There are three lessons I’ve learned about showing up.
1. The win rarely happens in the moment you’re in. It happens in hindsight, when you look back at forty Mondays of sprints, or 139 Substack posts, and realize the thing you were building the whole time was momentum itself. I didn’t feel like I was “succeeding” on post number 12, or post number 47. I just showed up and wrote. The success was in the pattern, not the individual post. (This is post 140!)
2. Consistency is the actual habit… the outcome is just proof of it. When Colin Mustful and I launched The Working Writer last week, we set a goal… 50 members by the end of the year. One week in, we’re at 39. That’s not luck. That’s what happens when you build something around showing up instead of waiting for a big splashy launch moment to carry it. We’ve spent year individually building our communities and learning what they need to feel supported.
3. You are closer than you think… and momentum doesn’t care if you feel ready. This one’s for you, if you’ve been circling a project, a habit, a piece of writing you keep meaning to start… you don’t need more motivation. You need one small, repeatable moment where you show up. Not because you feel like it. Momentum, once it’s moving, does most of the work for you. Your 8am writing sprint doesn’t need to feel inspired. It just needs to happen.
If you need that accountability, we are here for you!
We’re one member away from 40, on our way to a goal of 50 by the end of the year and I’d love for that fortieth member to be you.
The Working Writer is built on exactly what I just described… weekly writing sprints, writing workshops, resources to help you learn and grow, AND a community of people who show up, encouraging the kind of quiet, compounding momentum that turns “someday” into a finished project. There’s a free 14-day trial, so you can come sit in a sprint with us, check out all the amazing resources, and workshops, feel what it’s like to show up alongside other writers, and decide from there.
If you’ve been waiting for a sign to start showing up for your own writing… this is it. 😃
Join The Working Writer and be member 40!
I’d love to hear from you… what’s one thing you’re showing up for right now, even when you don’t feel like it?
Read. Move. Build the habit. Change your life.
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Questions, thoughts, or just want to say hi? I’m at theliteraryassistant@gmail.com