The Two-Year Silence: Why Sometimes Winning Means Simply Showing Up

Learning to embrace imperfect progress in a world obsessed with consistency

The original post below was written in 2018, and finally published in 2024. Sometimes, the journey of self-acceptance takes longer than expected.

If you were productive today, you're winning.

If you're reading this, you're winning.

If you got out of bed, you're winning.

Bottom line: YOU. ARE. WINNING.

I'm going to be brutally honest right now – I let myself down. Not only did I let myself down, it took almost two years to sit down, accept my mistake, and actually write something. Even as I sit here, the resistance towards writing this article is palpable. Each word feels like it's under a microscope. Is this the right tone? Does this first paragraph matter? Is this the right topic? Does any of this even matter?

Well, it does to me. And maybe it will to you too.

Here's a classic example of "do as I say, not as I do." As a leader, mentor, and career counselor, I constantly push my team to challenge their fears, take chances, and put their work out there with the mindset of iteration and growth. And yet here I am, metaphorically huddled in the corner, unwilling to write, reluctant to make a video (despite several attempts), just... hiding.

Two years of silence doesn't happen by accident. Looking back at the timeline between my consistent weekly videos to zero output, here's what actually happened:

After my last video, I dove headfirst into a project in Miami. For 44 weeks, I lived the consultant's dream – or nightmare – flying back and forth from San Francisco. The burnout was creeping in, but the work was engaging and challenging enough to mask it. Just as that wrapped up, I landed what seemed like the opportunity of a lifetime in Las Vegas. Eighteen months of high-stakes work with bigger everything – team size, deadlines, responsibilities. I poured every ounce of energy I had into it.

During this time, I never stopped ideating. The topics kept flowing, ideas for content accumulated like leaves in autumn. But as time passed, I built my own mountain to climb. What started as a simple writing practice morphed into an overwhelming avalanche of tasks: articles to write, videos to produce, subscription features to implement, syndication to manage, layouts to update – the list grew endlessly. What once took a couple of hours a week became an insurmountable fortress of expectations, fortified by growing guilt with each passing day.

But here's the plot twist – these aren't just negative experiences. The last two years have been a transformative journey, albeit a challenging one. It's been filled with invaluable learning experiences, moments of genuine adversity, deep wells of self-doubt, necessary self-reflection, and finally – perhaps most importantly – self-acceptance.

Sometimes winning isn't about maintaining a perfect streak. Sometimes it's about finding your way back to yourself, even if that takes longer than expected.