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I pay my respects and acknowledge all Traditional Custodians of Country and on whose land I live and work. I recognise their continuing connection to land, waters and culture. I pay my respects to their Elders past and present.
Always was, always will be.

Welcome to this week's useletter.

The newsletter that's useful. Focussed on your future not my past.

Spoiler alert: In an (over)abundance of caution... If you’re watching Alone Australia Season 2 and don’t yet know who won, you might want to close this email until you’ve finished the series. I don’t reveal anything, but an educated guess might lead you there.

Alone is a contest that rewards survival skills, mental strength and persistence.

Yet at the end of Australian Season 2…

I felt like the outcome was somehow unjust.

I’ve sat with that thought for a few days.

And today my thinking is different.

Even as I embrace disappointment that my favourite contestants finished 2nd and 3rd.

In Alone, the thing is…

…for all the good survival skills some have, there’s many things they can't control.

…as strong as some are mentally, when you’re getting hungry and luck isn’t going your way, two months alone is a s#!t load of time. More than enough time to dwell on and interrogate the wisdom of what they’re doing.

…persistence is a super-power. Sometimes persistence is more than enough, even if that doesn’t feel fair.

As I pondered, I recalled one of my guiding words this year is, you guessed it…

persistence

Worth expanding on.

I got you

Michael

PS: I'm persisting with refining the detail of my new kit-of-parts workshops. I've just updated the diagram amongst other things. Download the précis HERE.

The hook

You’re probably wondering why I’ve titled this The hook, after a focus on persistence.

I’ll get to that, if you're not already ahead of me.

When starting something new, it takes time to get good at it, to find traction or success. It takes persistence to keep going. Persevering in the face of challenges, failures or hurdles. Overnight success is rare (and frankly unlikely). It’s more likely, that to be successful, you’ll need sustained effort over an extended period.

By refusing to give up, you open up the possibility of learning from your failures. Those things that didn’t work to be iterated or rethought. Making space for the possibility of a more successful development.

And the best way to motivate persistence is by putting yourself on the hook when starting a new project (whatever it may be). Do your work in public. Let people know what you’re doing. Write a message to your future self applauding yourself for your persistence.

Once you’re on the hook, there’s only two ways off. By giving up, or by succeeding.

Persistence is a skill you can learn.

It begins with a growth mindset, being open to learning and actively seeking it, either formally or from failures. Also,

Working on interrogating and making improvements.
Asking questions about what better looks like.
By breaking the goal into small steps, realistic ones you can focus on without overwhelm and celebrate wins to build the motivation.
Design the way you do your work so that doing it is a habit, and one you're reluctant to break.
Finding people to support you, they can help encourage and motivate when it all feels too hard.

Persistence is not about blind progress but about adapting and finding creative solutions when faced with obstacles.

Keep going.

You got this.

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