This One Thing Squanders My Success, But I Won’t Quit

Summary

The author reflects on the challenges of maintaining consistency in their online store and writing on Medium, emphasizing the importance of perseverance despite the temptation to quit due to impatience.

Abstract

The author shares their journey with a print-on-demand online store and writing on Medium, highlighting the struggle with impatience and the pattern of starting and stopping these endeavors. Despite setbacks, such as deleting an Instagram page with 800 followers and intermittent writing, the author has seen growth when they've persisted, such as reaching 1.5k followers and making sales in their store, as well as gaining followers and earnings on Medium. The recent birth of their child and a demanding full-time job add to the challenge of maintaining their creative pursuits. Inspired by Gary Vee's advice against seeking instant success, the author is determined to continue, recognizing that consistency and improvement are key to eventual breakthroughs. They encourage others facing similar doubts to persist, destroy what doesn't work, and use failures as learning experiences for future success.

Opinions

Impatience is the enemy of building anything that truly lasts.

In 2018, I started a print-on demand online store selling t-shirts, coffee mugs, phone cases, and other items. It’s been a lot of fun and I consider it a creative outlet for me. After wasting a ton of time scrolling on Instagram and thinking that my store would never make it, I deleted the page with 800 followers. In December of 2020 I started a new page, began posting, and got my page up to 500 followers. Then I stopped. On August 15th, I started pressing HARD to grow my audience, posting almost 1 month without a single sale, but I’ve grown my audience now to 1.5k followers and in the last few days have had 10 sales.

Last year, I started writing on Medium. I wrote consistently for about 1–2 weeks and then stopped. I didn’t really understand the platform. On September 11th, I started posting again. One week later, I had 100 followers. One week after that I’d earned almost $10 with one of my articles having about 600 reads. I now stand at 226 followers and 21 published articles.

I’m currently at that moment where I continue to press on, or I just quit. When life gets really busy, I usually start to pull back. My wife and I just welcomed our first child into the world, and after taking two weeks off, I’m about to go back to my full-time job. I work anywhere from 8–12 hours a day. It will be tough to fit quality writing and posting in to such a busy schedule.

The real enemy of my success in these two areas, writing and my online store, is impatience. Starting and stopping, only to start and stop again, won’t really get you anywhere. Then, I watched a Gary Vee video in which he talked about comparison and how everyone wants success tomorrow. He completely destroyed the idea of microwave success. I was convicted by the way he just harshly but candidly told the truth. I quit too early.

Now, it’s great to listen to Gary Vee talk about playing the long-game, which I wholeheartedly believe in. It’s another thing to go a few months pressing and get to the point where you wonder if it’s ever going to lead anywhere. Part of me is convinced that those who are consistent and keep improving will eventually get the breakthrough.

I believe that this time things will be different. There’s a new fire that burns on the inside to see it through. In the last month alone I’ve taken both these things further than I ever could have imagined.

Why am I telling you this? I’m telling you this because many, many of you will start writing on this platform, start a new podcast, a new online store, or some new business and will eventually get to the place where you wonder if it’s worth it. KEEP GOING. DO NOT QUIT. Push through the impatience, the questions, and the skepticism. If you truly created something that sucks, destroy it and build something better. You learned valuable information from the failure that will eventually take you to the next level.

The future is given to the faithful. Be faithful and consistent in working towards your goals. Love and trust the process, and keep hustling.