Enjoy the striving, not what we strive for

This week I read an article from Sahil Bloom about “Trap of Extraordinary” that kept me thinking.

“The Trap of the Extraordinary is that we conflate success with the achievement of the extraordinary. Winners are those who achieve the extraordinary, losers are those who do not.” - Sahil Bloom

When we are in the trap, Sahil explains, we either achieve the goal and feel like a winner (but only for a while, because we will soon feel unfulfilled by the lack of another goal), or faile to achieve the goal and feel like a loser.

I realised that this is what I have been stuck in.

Over the last 2 years, I have been wrestling with the idea of becoming a creator or influencer of some sort. But I have unknowingly fallen into the Trap of Extraordinary.

I thought success is about getting millions of views and likes, building thousands of fans or followers. (“Surely only creators operating at this level can say they are successful!”)

But the result is that this way of thinking has paralyzed me, so much so that I am so afraid of getting started.

I stared at the grand goal of “getting millions of views or fans” and have absolutely no idea how to do so.

It feels like an situation of a “either-or”. Either I can millions of views or fans” to be “successful” or I fail. And since I don’t have any past experience or track recording of getting views or fans, then I am doomed to be a loser. If I am doomed to fail, I don’t even want to get started…

See, this creates a self-defeating prophecy.

So how shall I escape the trap of extraordinary? Sahil suggests that we should enjoy the striving itself, not what we strived for.

“The prize is the striving, not the achievement.”

In my case, I could have learned to focus on the output (the doing), not the outcome (the results).

Outcomes are number of fans and followers, number of likes, number of sponsorships I secured. Outputs are the number of articles I published, number of products I launched, number of videos I churned out. Learn to focus on the output, not the outcome. It’s the reps that build long lasting results.

Take the example of another of my favorite creator, Ali Abdaal. Ali is a doctor turned YouTuber. Over a course of 10 years, Ali has build an YouTube empire with over 6M follower.

He didn’t start by aiming to get 6M fans. That’s the outcome. He focuses on the output of “# of videos published every week regardless of results”. The consistency and the improvement on the craft is what helped him eventually build this massive following.

As beginners looking to achieve personal mastery in something, I could ask myself:

• Can I create videos for 12 months without getting any rewards
• Can I write for 12 months without getting paid
• Can I post for 12 months without getting fans or likes

This new perspective has helped me got started to writing this weekly newsletter. And it’s liberating to just get started without thinking about how “successful” it’s going to be.

Focus on the striving and let what we strive for show up as rewards at its rightful time.