[BrianHV]

I was in a similar — albeit not so extreme — place to where Abe was. I tell everyone that I'm working towards a music career and experimenting with startups. But I recently (prompted by a birthday) started looking at how I spent the past few months. And when I looked at it honestly, I hadn't done some of the core things that are required to be successful. I hadn't networked in the music scene much, I hadn't played out enough, and I hadn't devoted serious time to writing code, preferring to learn new frameworks, languages, or techniques.

What I noticed was that in all cases, there was a fear of trying and failing underlying my inaction. I was worried that if I played out and didn't live up to professional standards I would develop a bad reputation quickly. I was worried that I would produce a service that some people would start relying on but that wouldn't produce enough revenue to justify maintaining it. It was a lot easier to tell myself that I would be successful when I put the effort in than to actually test that hypothesis.

So I made a conscious decision to err on the side of action in all things. I chose to wake up at 8:00 every day even though I love being able to sleep in; it puts me into a working state of mind. I chose to install LeechBlock in Firefox, which will make it so I can't even post in this thread by the time you're reading this. Between 9 and 5 every day, I'm doing only things that advance me towards my goals. (And eating.) And I refuse to allow myself excuses. If I imagined a friend asking me why I haven't done something that is an essential step in my process and I would feel embarrassed by the answer, I do it ASAP.

I've been at this a week now. I've already accomplished several things I ought to have done months ago. Hopefully I'm building habits that I can maintain indefinitely.