A couple weeks ago I had a flood of creative output after an inspiring vacation. I wrote about 25,000 words across three different writing projects in a little over a week.
But now the flood has dried up and I’m struggling to write my daily post here (the drafts I wrote ahead of time are coming in handy), not to mention adding content to my other projects.
When things are going well, we forget the fundamentals. We make the mistake of thinking it’s the “new normal” and it won’t require the same daily effort that was required to ramp up to such a high level of output in the first place.
So we end up riding the wave and hoping it just carries us along and we forget to put in the daily, basic, fundamental work.
Then when the wave runs out, we don’t have a foundation that we’ve kept up with maintaining, and we’re back to rebuilding from square one.
It happens on our sales team, too. We’ll have a great stretch. The energy is high. Everyone on the team is working hard and closing deals.
Until at some point, if we’re not careful, we forget about the fundamentals—sending emails, having important conversations with non-decision-makers, vetting new leads, etc.
We come into the office thinking “we’ve got this.” We think, because things went well yesterday then they must go well today, right?
Consistency and commitment to daily (sometimes boring) routines is key. Emotionally, it helps to remain jaded about your success.
So when things are going well, you can remain hungry like you still have work to do.