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# [Be someone who does things | notes.eatonphil.com](https://notes.eatonphil.com/2024-09-23-be-someone-who-does-things.html?ref=dailydev)

See also [[Bookmarks/Management and Work related/Consistency is King\|Consistency is King]] for a longer essay about this

I wrote last month that _what you want to do_ is one of the most useful motivations in life. I
want to follow that up by saying that the only thing more important
than wanting to do something is to _actually_ do something.

The most valuable trait you can develop for yourself is to be
consistent. It is absolutely something you can develop. And moreover
it's kind of hard to believe that for anyone it is innate.

I meet so many people who say they want to do things. And I ask them
what they're doing to get there and they get flustered. This is
completely understandable.

I meet so many students who feel overwhelmed by what everyone else is
doing. This is also understandable.

But it doesn't matter what anyone else is doing. It doesn't matter
where anyone else is at. It matters where you are at. Compete with
yourself before you compete with anyone else. What matters is that you
get into a habit of consistently working on little goals.

If you pick something that is too complex, break it down. Keep on
breaking problems or ideas down until you find a problem or idea you
can solve.

Then keep on finding new problems to solve. Move on in complexity over
time as you can and want to.

Don't worry about getting things perfect. Who can discredit you for
doing your best? What shame is there when you're being earnest? The
only thing that makes sense to feel bad about is not *trying to do*what you _genuinely wanted to do_.

And this doesn't have to be about projects or ideas outside of
work. There may be things you want to do at work like improving
documentation or writing better tests or adding new checks to code or
blogging or interviewing customers or working with another team.

Like I said in [[Bookmarks/Management and Work related/Obsessions and Results\|Obsessions and Results]]
don't worry about what you do daily. That is too frequent to think
about. Instead think about what you're doing once a month.

Make time once a month to publish a post or complete a small
project. Whatever you want to do, I am confident you can find some
small version of it that you could commit to doing once a month. Be
consistent!

If a month is too often, pick a longer freqency. Find whatever cadence
and whatever size of project that allows you to be consistent.

When you're consistent over the course of months I think you'll be
astounded at what you accomplish in a year.
