You don’t love what you do, and yet you act surprised when you | M O O D ☾

You don’t love what you do, and yet you act surprised when your peers don’t love what you do either.

Everyone wants the secret recipe.

What boxes do I gotta check to pick up a social following? What boxes do I gotta check to gain a few clients? What boxes do I gotta check to get what I want?

Everyone wants to know.

And so people—those who are who you want to be—are happy to sell you their formula.

“You’ve gotta blog once a week, the written word is the secret.”

“You’ve gotta post on IG every day, frequency is the secret.”

“You’ve gotta tag important people so maybe they share and people think you’re important to.”

Yeah, those are the secrets.

So that’s what we do.

We pick up a laundry list of boxes to be checked (as if this creative shit is little more that a grocery list) and we head out to get what we want.

We’re told writing will give us what we want — so we tell ourselves we’re writers and we write. 

We’re told that posting on IG will give it to us — so we tell ourselves we’re creator and we create.

Etc etc blah blah

But then, something weird happens.

Shit doesn’t pop.
Progress doesn’t happen.

So we ask why?

Why didn’t it work?

And we’re told a lot of things. We’re told there are more boxes, new boxes, to be checked. We’re told the ~algorithm~ is at fault.

We’re told all kinds of bullshit.

But here’s the truth.

Here’s why your shit didn’t pop and why you don’t know what’s going on:

You don’t actually love what you do.

You’re only doing it because of what you think it’ll do for other people…who then will do things for you.

You really thought that.

You thought you could check a few boxes and people would really feel something.

But they didn’t. Whether they realize it or not, they felt it for exactly what it was — something as hollow as the box before your check.

That, my friends, is what you’re doing wrong.

And it’ll continue going wrong until you quit caring so much about what it might do for others — and more about what it does for you.

You’ve gotta love the process, the game.

You’ve gotta love it for what what it does for you.

You gotta love it first.

Because then, and only then, will the game love you back.

Happy loving.