Where to find the hours to make it happen

Where to find the hours to make it happen

By Derek Sivers

When you experience someone else’s genius(ˈjēnyəs) work, a little part of you feels, “That’s what I could have, would have, and should have done!”

Someone else did it. You didn’t.

They fought(fôt) the resistance(rəˈzistəns). You gave in to distractions.

They made it top priority(prīˈôrədē). You said you’d get to it some day.

They took the time. You meant(ment) to.

When this happens, you can take it two ways:

You could let that part of you give up. “Oh well. Now I don’t need to make that anymore.”

Or you could do something about that jealous(ˈjeləs) pain(pān). Shut off your phone, kill the distractions, make it top priority, and spend the time.

It takes many hours to make what you want to make. The hours don’t suddenly appear. You have to steal(stēl) them from comfort(ˈkəmfərt). Whatever you were doing before was comfortable. This is not. This will be really uncomfortable.

The few times in my life I’ve made a real change like this, it felt awful(ˈôfəl) on the surface(ˈsərfəs). I wasn’t shallow(ˈSHalō)-happy about it. I wasn’t smiling. I was annoyed(əˈnoi) and fighting it inside, but on the outside I did the work. And in the end, got the deeper satisfaction(ˌsadəsˈfakSH(ə)n) of finishing.

https://sivers.org/uncomf