Simple, but not always easy: the key to progress or success is just to keep going. I’ll tell you why in this short episode.
Simon Haisell’s year-long War and Peace read can be found here.
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Transcript
Nancy Norbeck [00:00:06]:
Welcome to Follow Your Curiosity. Ordinary people, extraordinary creativity. Here’s how to get unstuck. I’m your host, creativity coach, Nancy Norbeck. Let’s go. Hey, everybody. This is Nancy Norbeck with this week’s creative pep talk. And, you know, I’ve been doing a year long read of Leo Tolstoy’s war and peace this year.
Nancy Norbeck [00:00:30]:
And, you know, it’s the kind of book that, if you’re familiar with it at all, is really big. And one of the only ways I think you can really make yourself get the whole way through it is to read it a little bit at a time. And I love this because it’s a great example of how small steps work and that, you know, yeah. Okay. If I had decided that I wanted to read it by the end of March, I probably could have. But doing it in a tiny little chunk, one chapter a day, makes it so much more accessible and easy, easy to consider. I don’t it’s it’s 10 minutes out of my day. So this monstrous book is broken down into tiny little chunks.
Nancy Norbeck [00:01:12]:
And, you know, the the way that I’m doing it, there’s a guy named Simon Hazel, if I’m saying his name right, who is leading this thing on Substack. And every week, he sends out a summary of what we’ve read for the last week. Yesterday, I was reading this summary, and I saw this great line. There’s a a general named Kutuzov. He is the commander in chief who everyone refers to as “Supreme Highness”— because that’s not gonna cause any trouble at all, right? And and I wanna read you just this little bit. He says—Simon says in in his email, “Kutuzov is just another flawed human bumbling through life.” And I read that and I thought, well, yeah, isn’t that all of us? You know, even if you are the “Supreme Highness,” the commander in chief of the Russian army fighting against Napoleon, and this part is just after the Battle of Borodino, you’re still just another flawed human bumbling through life.
Nancy Norbeck [00:02:10]:
And so what I really wanna say today is super simple. Just keep going. It doesn’t matter how flawed you are or how bumbling you are or if you’re only reading war and peace one chapter a day, just keep going because you’ll get there in the end. I’m, like, almost 70% of the way through this book at this point, which obviously if you do this every day is what’s gonna happen, but it’s still kind of mind boggling to me that I’ve made it this far. Because that book, when you look at it all at once, is really intimidating. And I’ve fumbled here and there. I’ve skipped days. I’ve also had days where I’ve read four or five chapters because I felt like it.
Nancy Norbeck [00:02:53]:
It’s all okay. We’re all flawed. We’re all gonna do it our own way. We all have our own strengths and weaknesses. And the really important thing is that we take those steps, small though they may be, and seriously don’t don’t diss the small step. It’s a powerful thing, and we keep going. So whatever it is that you’re working on right now, I hope you just keep going. Break it down where you need to, but keep going.
Nancy Norbeck [00:03:21]:
You will get there in the end. As always, let me know what happens when you try this. Let me know what your experience is. I’m always curious to hear. I hope that you will join us over on Substack if you haven’t already. The link is in the show notes and in the notes on this video on YouTube, and we’d love to have you. And with that, I will see you next time. If this episode resonated with you or if you’re feeling a little bit less than confident in your creative process right now, join me at the spark on Substack as we form a community that supports and celebrates each other’s creative courage.
Nancy Norbeck [00:03:59]:
It’s free and it’s also where I’ll be adding programs for subscribers and listeners. The link is in your podcast app, so sign up today. See you there and see you next week. Follow Your Curiosity is produced by me, Nancy Norbeck, with music by Joseph McDade. If you like, Follow Your Curiosity, please subscribe, rate, and review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. And don’t forget to tell your friends. It really helps me reach new listeners.