Illusions of accomplishment

Something I'm just realizing that I struggle with is the illusion of accomplishment. It's come up during the last couple of weeks while I get back into a groove after a disastrous November, and the more I think about it the more I identify other times I've found myself in the same trap.

In November I ran some numbers, did some projections, and found out that all of the work I've been doing on my Master Plan is actually working. I'm still more than a year away from bringing everything to fruition, but I can see the end from here. It's one thing to tell myself every day for the last five years that I'm going to succeed eventually, and it's an entirely different thing to look at a pile of math and see that I will actually succeed by a certain date. There is still some projection involved, but there's also a timeline that isn't "eighteen months from now", like it has been for the last 5 years.

Realizing this threw me for a bit of a loop. I told anyone who would listen that hey, look, I'm not entirely delusional. All of these things I've been doing are working. And the feedback I got was universally positive and encouraging and made me feel pretty good about myself. Made me feel vindicated a little, that I've done something good.

But I haven't. Not yet. The amount of work I need to do between now and victory is staggering. More than I've ever done in that timeframe, honestly. And if it doesn't get done, that master timeline starts floating again.

And that part trips me up. See, it is awesome to tell people all the things you've done, and how successful you are, and how you have grand plans and grand ambitions and that you're going places with your life. And it is so much easier to tell people those things than it is to actually do them. You get all of the positive social feedback with none of the mindbending solitary work. You can make a couple friends at a party pitching a good ambitious line, and get heaps of love at the dinner table just for talking about what you gonna do.

And oh man, am I susceptible to that business. I get so wrapped up in my own schemes a lot of times that I forget how to make good table conversation. So if I get a chance to talk about my plans and be lauded for presenting them like they're a done deal, I'm all up ons. Once I start on that path, it's pretty easy to go along with all of the back patting. I start to relax a little, start to believe that I've done a good job. And that leads all to quickly to days and weeks passing by without making any progress.

It's ultimately illogical, that response. When I'm running a race, I don't start walking as soon as I see the finish line. No, no, that's when the afterburners go on (little, tiny, RC Flyer afterburners, but I use what I got). Logically, I should have looked at those numbers I crunched and braced myself for the whirlwind of work that I need to do in order to get over the top.

So I'm working on that part right now. Keeping up the pace I should be setting for a year+ seems almost impossible. I've never gone that hard for that long. Not even close. A month, sure. Three months even. But not five, six times that. But I don't have to know that. I don't have to acknowledge it. I just need to blitz the rest of today, and then I can go to sleep. And I'm pretty sure I can blitz tomorrow too. So I'm just going to focus on crushing my work today, and having a good followup tomorrow. Just like I've always done. It's crunch time, but I've done crunch time before. Until it's over, it's probably best to shut up about what I'm gonna do, and just get this shit done first.

Onward...