Some is better than none. Some is better than none. I kept repeating that to myself this morning as I dragged myself out of bed at 5am, fully aware that I was too tired, too grumpy, too disorganized, and too unmotivated to go out and do my ten-mile run with any enthusiasm. I told myself that I’d get warmed up and start running, and if I wasn’t feeling it, I’d quit after five miles and try again some other time in the week.

I ended up completing the entire workout, more or less successfully, and though I was still tired, unmotivated, disorganized, and grumpy afterward, I felt a modicum of peace, knowing that I’d logged some more miles and could check that workout off my to-do list.

If I’d decided as I was lying there in bed that I couldn’t do the full workout and thus shouldn’t bother trying to do anything, I would have had nothing to show for the morning. But by accepting that even “some” would be better than nothing, I set myself up for success.

All too often, we cripple our own productivity. We set high expectations (and there’s nothing wrong with that) but then get so intimidated by them that we become too nervous to try for fear of absolute or even partial failure. We oversimplify a multilayered process into a pass or fail, and this all or nothing attitude becomes so overwhelming that we stop trying at all.

Don’t be afraid of trying! And more importantly, don’t be afraid of failing. Don’t be afraid of pivoting in the midst of a plan or adjusting goals once you’re in the thick of it. If you plan to write 1k words on Thursday, don’t stress about finding the perfect moment when you have motivation, time, and energy to do it all at once. Because you might not have those things.

Even if you only have one of those magical ingredients, or if you have none of those magical ingredients, sit down to write with the goal of 1k but the knowledge that whether you hit that number or not, as long as you’ve written something, that is good too.

It’s the end of June. I’d really hoped I’d have the second draft of ALoS 2 done by now. I don’t. In fact, it’s less than halfway done. And every day I sit down with that unfulfilled goal looming over my head, and I shrug, and I write as much as I can that day. And that is good too.

Something that’s really exciting about adjusting your mindset for this is that setting even bigger goals won’t scare you. I’m about two months into the ALoS 2 rewrite, and I’m picking up speed – maybe I’ll finish in another month. And I think I’ll give myself one month for the third revision. Is that incredibly quick for me? Yep! It sure is. But even if I “fail” at it, I think I’ll still do it faster than if I gave myself two months, or three. So why not try for one?

There’s freedom in goal-chasing when you see the value in just trying, regardless of the outcome. So don’t hold back. Dream big and get after it.