I bought a finance tracker on Etsy. It was pretty, and I was excited about it. And then I decided I couldn't actually use it yet, because I needed to get my money in order first. I needed to get my act together before I could start tracking my finances with the tracker I bought to help me track my finances.

How ridiculous is that? And I was smart enough and still didn't see the ridiculousness of it. I thought I was doing the right thing.

It wasn't just the tracker. It was every version of the same move. Study the programming language to the tee before starting on the project — basically become this all-knowing expert first. Fix my discipline issue and wake up at 5am, and then start working on my new life. Fix every single problem there is before going forward.

But here's the trick: your brain doesn't know any other reality, and it really doesn't know how to fix all of it in one sitting. Those are problems that have been engraved in your brain for many years. And on top of that, you want to build a life from the perfect Pinterest inspo — another completely unknown territory for your mind. I mean, you can imagine it happening, but making it happen is completely different. Like — where do you even start?

So you gave yourself an impossible task. Fix every past problem and build a whole new reality, at the same time, at the pace of a cheetah.

The Foundation

Here's the thing I should just say out loud: I've never been the organized, disciplined person. Never have been. I was constantly late for school in high school. All of my projects in university were done last minute — I remember once finishing a paper the night before, working until 5am to make the deadline. I made it, but at what cost?

That's the foundation. That's who I am. I'm not claiming any of that has changed.

But something did change, and it wasn't discipline. It was something else. Let me back up.

Earlier this year I took a trip to Europe. I fell out of my routine while I was away, and when I got back I committed a fair amount of self-loathing over it — felt guilty that I'd stopped doing what I was doing. And the moment I sat down to try to pick things back up, I had this thought: oh my goodness, I've been away for so long. Are we really gonna attempt to keep building this new life? Like I didn't believe in the vision anymore. Like it was such a drag to get back to this "productive routine."

And I noticed something. The longer I was away from it, the less natural it felt to me. Writing the article again felt alien — like it wasn't me doing it. Such a weird feeling.

So I knew two things. One: I can't afford to feel alienated from my dream life just because I took a pause. And two: I can't really take those breaks anymore if I'm being serious about my future — because I don't have the bandwidth to argue with myself every time like this. It's just too draining.

And I want to be clear about what I mean by "breaks," because I don't mean physical rest. I mean breaks from building the future. Like it's something you can put on pause, walk away from, and come back to as if it'll still be there. It won't be. I know I'm in a transitional mode, and if I let go and try to get back to it later, it's not just going to be sitting where I left it. It will be slowly vanishing.

Because how come people feel it gets harder to build something with time? Time passes, we do nothing, and we're less convinced we can do anything. That's what I mean. I need to continue right now, while I have this passion and fire inside me — because if I leave it unattended, it will die and there will only be smoke and ashes.

So I asked myself the question: do I really want to live like this? And to be fair, my life could be considered pretty comfortable — I technically could keep going like I have been. But would I forever regret, down the road, that I never tried to chase my dreams too? Absolutely.

So I decided, right there and then: I'm not stopping until I get what I think is that dream. And if it turns out not to be the dream — well, at least I did it, and I can switch to something else, because now I have information.

And here's the reframe that made it stick. How come we show up every day, trying to be our best selves, when we work for someone else — but we can't show up for ourselves like that? Which is way more important?

I decided I'm in the business of building myself. And I don't quit.

That's when I stopped negotiating.

The In-Between

Here's the honest part. The results are slow. Really slow. I don't have money coming in from any of this yet. The app isn't out. My audience isn't big. And I'm in this weird in-between stage where the old self is gone but the new self doesn't feel real yet.

You can feel it in your body, though. Something's shifting. You just can't go back to that old self, even though the new self doesn't feel quite real.

Here's the small, specific thing that tells me it's real anyway. Before my first trip this year, I failed to write and post an article and schedule it for Pinterest. That was the pattern. Right now, one week before my next trip, this is the second article I'm writing — and I'm writing another one right after this one, just to have my blog and Pinterest taken care of while I'm away. Everything scheduled.

And I don't take breaks from coding either. I know it's the pillar — it's important. So while I'm not going to write while I'm away, I do have a plan for what I'll be working on regarding my app and my coding overall. Everything is planned. My laptop is coming with me.

Am I proud of every article I write right now? Not really. I'm not sure I'm proud of the last one at all. But it exists. And that's the point — the shift isn't in the outcomes yet. It's in the default. The thing I would have skipped a few months ago, I now do without having to argue with myself about it.

The unrealistic-expectations trap is real. You don't know how long any of this is going to take, and honestly, you were never entitled to know. Your only concern should be to stay consistent, because at the beginning it's going to feel slow — like really sloooow, almost unbearable. But again, that's none of your concern.

So — if you can't measure it and can't schedule it, what are you actually supposed to do?

What You Actually Do

Stop putting it to a vote every evening. The decision was already made. It doesn't get re-litigated at 8pm.

Drop the deadline. The timeline is not the main character.

Stay consistent through the slow part. It's going to feel unbearable. That isn't your concern.

Simple. Not easy.

Next week I'm getting on a plane with my laptop. I'll be coding and writing while I travel, because there's no distraction from my 9-5 at least. And here's the thing I didn't realize until recently — traveling and coding and writing were already on the list of dream things I wanted to do. All three of them. I was so worried about the dream life not being here yet that I didn't notice part of it is already closer than I thought.

It's happening, badly and in the margins, while it still feels unfinished. That's what building looks like from the inside.

The decision is made — everything else is just logistics.