It’s Hard Somedays

It’s hard somedays.

We wake up, we eat breakfast, we take a shower, we head into the office to do our work and then…

Nothing.

I recently re-read Turning Pro by Steven Pressfield and found an excerpt I’d like to share on this particular topic:

TAKE WHAT THE DEFENSE GIVES YOU

Every book I write has at least one giant section that’s as tough as a knot in a plank of lumber. I can’t crack it head-on. Attacking from the flank doesn’t work. The damn thing is just too stubborn.

When you’re up against that kind of Resistance, there’s no shame in taking what the defense will give you. In football terms, we shut that part of the playbook that contains the deep “go” routes and the 55-yard bombs. We turn instead to that section that has the short slants and the three-yard dinks into the flat.

Two key tenets for days when Resistance is really strong:

1. Take what you can get and stay patient. The defense may crack late in the game.

2. Play for tomorrow.

Our role on tough-nut days is to maintain our composure and keep chipping away. We’re pros. We’re not amateurs. We have patience. We can handle adversity.

Tomorrow the defense will give us more, and tomorrow we’ll take it.

There’s a third tenet that underlies the first two:

3. We’re in this for the long haul.

Our work is a practice. One bad day is nothing to us. Ten bad days are nothing.

In the scheme of our lifelong practice, twenty-four hours when we can’t gain yardage is only a speed bump. We’ll forget it by breakfast tomorrow and be back again, ready to hurl our bodies into the fray.

Pressfield, Steven (2012-05-30). Turning Pro (pp. 120-121). Black Irish Books. Kindle Edition.

Some days you’ll show up to the office and not feel like doing any meaningful work. That looming deadline will weigh on your shoulders, that big project you’ve been wanting to undertake will look as appealing as eating nails. But there’s hope, because all you need to do today is take one step. Then show up again tomorrow.