Just show up

The secret to building a purposeful & fulfilling life isn't as complictated as you think.

99% of building towards any habit, skill, or achievement is just the act of showing up. Coming to the arena.

It’s literally that simple.

Now, “showing up” can mean many different things, depending on what you’re trying to achieve:

• Building a running habit? Just put on your sneakers
• Building a gym habit? Just enter the gym
• Want to start a business with your friends? Just start hanging out every week to talk about ideas
• Want to wake up early? Just set your alarm

The consistent act of bringing yourself to the table is more than most people will do. And because compounding is magical, this consistency in “just showing up” will pay for itself tenfold over time.

I’ve seen this play out in my own life so many times.

• The growing company that my friends and I are now running full-time, started off as a recurring Sunday meeting without any goals other than “working on something together outside of our jobs”. We met consistently every week for 2 years without missing a single meeting, and slowly stumbled upon the idea that ultimately became our business.
• My (short-lived) cricket career was made possible partly because I came back to my hometown on a bus every weekend, like clockwork, from university to make it to practice.

An insidious but common distraction is figuring out what to do when you show up.

• What exercises should I do when I’m at the gym? What’s the best routine for me?
• What route should I run? Do I need to buy specific sneakers for this run?
• What kind of business do we want to build? What are our ideas? What skills do I need to learn beforehand.

It seems like a quite rational thing to do - to prepare in advance so you’re not wasting time when you get there. And that’s the most dangerous part. It’s a trap. It’s just “productive procrastination”. It feels great, but the time passes and in hindsight, you realized that you didn’t actually show up, you just kept thinking about what to do if you did.

The questions aren’t wrong, but the timing is. If you focus on showing up, the questions will take care of themselves over time.

So set the alarm, put on those sneakers, and enter the arena.

Just show up.