Forget the 67 Steps. Your Instagram guru is selling you a beautiful lie. Learn to run the goddamn engine.
Let’s dispense with the motivational posters and the overly sweet promises of my beloved Instagram gurus. The warm truth is this: Success is not the spectacular thing you do on a Tuesday; it’s the unremarkable thing you do every damn day.
We are suckers for the big and splashy moments, for Tai Lopez not selling us 3 but rather 67 steps to success. We crave the ‘big start,’ the new notebook (yes, I see you), the spotless workspace, the high-end running shoes.
We confuse the ritual of preparation with the act of actually doing it. And nowhere is this delusion more evident than in that furious, temporary blast we call motivation. Don’t get me wrong, I love when motivation kicks in.
Motivation is rocket fuel. It is explosive and loud. It often burns too hot and too fast. It’s a bender, not a marriage. And you cannot build a life on benders.
Look around at the people who actually produce, the ones who deliver the goods, day after day, year after year. Your next Uber driver pulling a twelve-hour shift, the substack writer facing the blank page before the first coffee, the craftsman sanding the same piece of wood for the hundredth time. They are not motivated. They are not high on endorphins or the promise of a future book deal. They are simply consistent.
Consistency is the diesel engine of their accomplishment.
It’s ugly. It smells faintly of oil and burnt rubber. It doesn’t inspire magic. It just turns the engine. It turns when it’s 90 degrees out, and it turns when the snow is drifting against the window. It doesn’t ask for permission, it doesn’t need 67 steps, and it certainly doesn’t ask how you feel about it.
How many brilliant diets have died on the altar of the fourth-day craving? How many epoch-making projects have collapsed because the initial, furious inspiration gave way to the slow, miserable slog?
You’ve been there. I’ve been there. It’s pretty straightforward. We don’t fail because we lack that initial, beautiful spark. We fail because we refuse the daily, unglamorous burden of turning the engine over, one ugly revolution at a time.
We have to stop chasing the fuel and instead build the goddamn engine and run it every single day.
Life is lived,
Willy