📘 The stunning accumulation of "a little bit every day"

#nodaysoff #cantstopwontstop #riseandgrind

How did The Dad get 15 million followers across platforms? A little bit every day.

Here’s my favorite inspirational hip hop lyric:

“And then they say it happened for me overnight, shit, yeah, I guess
I guess it took ten years for me to be an overnight success”

Big Sean, “Skyscrapers”

Runner up:

“I love when you count me out"

Kendrick Lamar

A lot of progress can be made with “a little bit every day” over a multi-year timespan.

#nodaysoff. #cantstopwontstop. #riseandgrind. Toxic hustle culture right???

It depends on your personality and how hard you’re goin every day.

Personality

Are you a routine person? I’ve discovered later in life that I 100% am. Routine people are obsessive, neurotic, and if we’re bein honest, have a little bit of an addictive personality.

“One day at a time” is a common overcoming-addiction mantra. One day at a time can be used to get rid of bad habits, but it can be used to create good habits too.

Intensity

If you go #nodaysoff and you’re super intense every day to the point of exhaustion, then yeah, that’s toxic hustle culture. You’re gonna burn out real quick.

Daily routine

So if you’re a routine person, try this…. Create a daily habit. Make it small and manageable. Do it every day, #nodaysoff. Get a streak going. Log each day you do it. See how long you can make that streak last.

If you’re slightly neurotic like me, you’ll strive for a long streak. And that alone will keep you doing it each day.

But most importantly, the daily routine will no longer be a DECISION. You don’t get to decide not to do it. You don’t have to think about it. It’s a given. You’re doing it. So you will.

Make sure it’s easy-ish. And even though it’s very light intensity, it doesn’t take long, and it’s not stressful, a little bit every day accumulates in a SHOCKING way.

The Dad’s content routine

On The Dad we had a master sched. 10+ slots every day. We did NOT miss slots. #nodaysoff.

If we just posted “when we wanted to,” we’d have all kinds of reasons to miss slots. We might even take full days off!

Instead we had no choice. We hit every slot. If there was a holiday week, we’d schedule two weeks in advance to cover.

How did The Dad get 15 million followers across platforms? A little bit every day.

2 miles per day

2022 was WILD for me. The first few months of the year were absolutely heartbreaking for me, as I decided it was time to move on from The Dad. (We’ll get to that part of the story eventually. Stick around.) And then after I made the decision, I had to set up for the transition and actually move on.

My fitness routine took a big hit.

On October 17 I checked Runkeeper. I had run about 170 miles so far that year. In 2021 I ran 365 miles. This cannot stand!

I did the math and figured out if I ran every day for the rest of the year, I could easily hit 366 by running 196 miles in 2 1/2 months. I’d just run 2 miles per day for a month, then alternate 2 miles and 3.15 miles (5k) for rest of November, and then alternate 2 miles and 4 miles in December. #nodaysoff

(Important note: 2 miles isn’t too strenuous for me. I run VERY SLOW. So just imagine your equivalent of this level of strenuousness.)

Laura was stunned. She says “Your body needs a break.” But I explained to her that this streak, and this daily routine is the only way I’d do it. I know myself too well. If I set a weekly goal or just did “as much as I could,” it wouldn’t happen. I need the daily routine. I need the streak. Plus I go so slow 2 miles is kinda like taking a long walk.

Some days were so easy I didn’t even think about it.

And some days were quite challenging, because I didn’t want to, because I had too much going on, because of the conditions, etc.

But the routine said I had to do it any way, every day.

Here was the weather on December 23:

I just reread “The Last Lecture” by Randy Pausch, the Carnegie Mellon professor (and dad) who was diagnosed with terminal cancer and gave a lecture that went viral on YouTube. (WHAT? You haven’t seen it? Go watch now.)

“The brick walls are there for a reason. The brick walls are not there to keep us out. The brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something. Because the brick walls are there to stop the people who don’t want it badly enough. They’re there to stop the other people.”

Randy Pausch

When it rained or the conditions weren’t ideal, I thought about this quote. -33 was a brick wall I busted through.

Individual days can be tough, but because the routine is small and manageable, you have the power to get through it, and keep coming back.

When I made it to the end of the year, after running 76 days in a row, I did not collapse in a pool of exhaustion. Because it was only a little bit each day.

Happy new year

I freakin love the new year. LOVE IT. I love reflecting on the previous year’s failures and accomplishments and looking ahead to the next year’s goals.

This year for me is all about Channel 3. Will it work? We’ll see. But I’m going to make a little bit of progress every day.

I’ll write a substack every Monday, at least until The Dad story is told.

(Oh and I may have some exciting The Dad-related news to share soon too. 👀📕⚖️ 2023 is gonna be amazing.)

And I’m keeping the running streak going. Be right back. Gotta go run 2 miles.