Commentary on Motivation

What encourages you forward?

Good morning from NYC

Happy Sunday! I hope you’re having a nice day so far. Thank you to everyone who responded to the Chat thread this week, sharing pictures of your scenes and current work projects. I love seeing them all and was inspired by your replies. There’s been so much going on lately and I have a ton of updates - for now though, I want to share a story about motivation and some thoughts/questions to bring us into the week ahead.

I first launched my Substack publication almost 1 year ago, on December 19, 2023. It was a little scary, venturing into the realm of publicly sharing long form writing. It was something new, something exciting, a step I was ready to take. So many of you were there at the beginning and are still here now. :) For that I am truly grateful, and so very grateful to each person who has joined along the way. Thank you!!

Now, the story below might seem a bit silly and insignificant, but stay with me and read the details as a sort of metaphor. Maybe you can relate and there’s a story of your own or some insight you might feel moved to share in the comments.

In January 2024, after my first month as a Substack writer, I received this email:

My goals had been simple - to post on Tuesdays and Thursdays, to read and respond to comments, to share my experience and learn from everyone else’s, to develop a community and share in it together. I always feel the need to write and create for myself, but I don’t always feel the impulse to share publicly, at least I never had a platform to regularly share and expand on topics in a longer form. Promising a fleet of readers that I would deliver was a way to stay on top of this and I wanted to push myself into new territory. Feel the fear and do the thing anyway. The more I shared, the more the fear subsided. Like anything else, with practice and trust, I saw the nearly immediate and transformative effects of going out of the comfort zone and letting in something new.

It was important to me to share a post at least once a week, but I had never considered the driving force of being semi-rewarded for keeping this goal strictly intact. Seeing that nicely organized email with those tangible numbers did something to my brain. I was already so excited about this new venture and didn’t actually need any extra motivation, but it was motivating anyway. It helped keep me accountable for my own goal of weekly publishing. I imagined getting to 10 weeks. 15 weeks. 20 weeks. It’s just a pretty rectangle with some numbers on it, but it became a weekly motivator that I never asked for. Every Monday morning I looked forward to my new streak email. When the percentage would jump higher or the number felt significant I would text a screenshot of the email to my mom. Again, I so much loved the process of writing and preparing my posts so I didn’t need any extra motivation, and I’m sure I would have kept the streak going just fine on my own, but it still felt good to see those Monday messages. It made me feel a sense of pride and accomplishment. Substack had an idea of how to motivate their writers to keep going, and it worked.

43 weeks!! Longer than 94% of writers. I wondered who was at the 100% mark. Top 6% of publishers. I wondered who was at 1%. I looked forward to December 2024, when I would hit my 1 year anniversary. I wanted to get to 100 weeks. 1000 weeks!

On Thursday, October 17, my dear friend Hillary of Keepsake and I did a collaborative post called, ‘We Share Because We Care.’ I had planned on doing another post of my own that week, but we had put significant effort and time into our collaboration and I wanted to give the post some space to breathe. I was proud of our work, happy about our post, though I realized there was a little buzzing voice in the back of my mind, wondering if writing a guest-post or cross-posting would count towards my weekly streak. I wrote a direct message to a Substack tech who in the past would respond with helpful advice and guidance. She didn’t answer. I noticed there was a Live Chat option for support, so I sent a message there and the screen said I was next in the queue.

To my surprise I had a really lovely conversation, and was assured that both guest posts and cross-posts would count as part of a Substack writer’s weekly publishing goals and thus would not hurt a weekly streak. I was thankful for the help, though slightly embarrassed at my concern over the topic. The voice on the other side was compassionate and understanding, saying how much they understood the importance of those weekly emails and the motivation they brought about for writers. It makes sense, since that must be the sole purpose for those emails and why the platform sends them out in the first place. They also said that the streak update would be late to appear in my inbox because it can take longer to process those types of alternate posts for the weekly analytics. I understood, felt relieved, relaxed and at ease, and I let it go from my mind for the rest of the week. I wasn’t worried when I didn’t receive an email on Monday, and I did my next post on Saturday, October 26.

Then a new Monday morning rolled around and I got this email:

I’m sure you can imagine the look on my face and feeling in my stomach when I saw this email. Congratulations for making it to 1 week - a bran new Substack writer, December 2023 again, 44 weeks of effort erased! Logically I knew this wasn’t true, rationally I knew it was just a pretty rectangle with some numbers on it, but somehow this email was just as powerful as it had been the first time I received it. Though this time I felt worried, crushed, and blatantly led astray.

I went back to the Live Chat when I recognized a crucial detail, one I should have taken more seriously into consideration the first time around - the Live Chat option was supported by AI. That lovely conversation of assurance I had before was with AI. Not only had I been led astray, but I had been led astray by AI. I found an email address for Substack support and after writing to them, I received this message:

It looks like you may have missed some time between posting, which caused you to restart your streak. You published a post on October 9th, and your next one was posted on October 26th, and that time range is over the limit we have to continue your streak. I do see that you crossposted on October 17th, but unfortunately, cross-posting isn't included in the streak. 
 
I hope this helps! Please let us know if there’s anything else we can do to help.

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I was feeling very upset at this moment and wrote them again, explaining that the Live Chat support had told me otherwise, to which they very kindly responded:

I apologize for how long it's taken me to get back to you. 
 
I wanted to let you know that I've reached out to our team to see if there's a way we can return your streak to you. I can't make any promises, but hopefully, they'll be able to figure out a way to do that. I completely understand how frustrating this must be, I know you've worked hard to get the streak that you had. 
 
Once I have an answer for you, I'll let you know asap. 

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And I eventually received this follow-up:

Thanks for your patience while I tried to look into this. 
 
Unfortunately, we aren't able to restore your streak to you at this time. I apologize that I can't provide a better resolution for you at this time. 
 
If there's anything else we can do to help, please let us know!

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At that point I was feeling demoralized and drained of spirit, made a fool by the friendly and sweet talking AI charlatan. To be honest, and I don’t like admitting this, but I was mad at Substack. I know I shouldn’t say that since I otherwise love this platform, and it really has made my life better in so many ways. But for that moment, I was mad, I was mad at myself, too, and I felt worried about the future of our world, moving so rapidly into this new era where AI is actually calming our moment’s worries by feeding us the false information we want to hear. Bespoke lies - harmless, yes (for now), spoken as fact in a friendly tone (for now), and tailor made to keep us satisfied (temporarily) and quiet. It felt so wrong, so I was feeling down, unmotivated. It was also an intense week. November 4th was the 30th anniversary of the day my dad died, and we hosted two tribute concerts in NYC to honor him on the day. The weeks leading up to that anniversary are always heavy for me and I tend to go quite inward during the month of October, plus it was a lot of work putting together the production and practicing for the two events. November 4th arrived. We did the shows and they were really nice. Then they were over. Then the election. Then the results. So with the mix of this all, I didn’t do my Substack post, until I finally did, on November 10th, and then Monday rolled around, and I got this email again, and this time, it really was true:

So there it was. Back to square one by my own doing. Cheated by AI, and cheating myself by allowing it to effect me so strongly. I fell off my powerful train of motivation because of a pretty rectangle with some numbers on it. My mom of course had been along for this whole saga, and I, in dramatic form, texted her asking what my motivation would be now?

She responded a simple message:

‘Your subscribers.’

It was simple, obvious, true, and again, I felt like a fool.

Throughout the last 11 months I’ve expressed quite often the immense gratitude I have for you all and the ways your presence and support have enhanced and enriched my life. My original motivation for this publication was simply to share my writing and questions with any soul out there who might be interested. Your energy and encouragement motivated me forward from day one. As I said before, I never needed the motivation of those streak emails in the first place, so losing them shouldn’t have influenced me so strongly, if even for a moment. I never asked for my Substack to be gamified, I never wanted for stats or rankings - I was already writing, and I just wanted to take the next and natural step forward in that process.

In launching a Substack publication, I gained the opportunity to have a platform of my own. In sharing it with you all, I’ve had the incredible opportunity to have a conversation, to share my voice and read yours in return. Reading your comments, your reflections, your memories and ideas, your questions, your heartaches, your work. You are all so generous with what you share and I feel this immense camaraderie, this weekly collaboration, a real community. Thinking about what sharing these weekly posts does for my life, what I look forward to, it isn’t numbers, it’s words → your words.

So I want to say thank you to everyone, and I want to say I’m sorry for letting the loss of a pretty rectangle with numbers on it have a hand in veering me off course. I learned valuable lessons though in this process, through this experience. And this example can be applied to other things, to anything. It made me think a lot about other examples of motivation gained and motivation lost throughout my life. This isn’t about the weekly streak email and my Substack publication, but can be applied to any example big or small of when we let something or someone crush our motivation, veer us off course, distract us, demoralize us, take our power away, have too much power over us. This is definitely a feeling I know we’re struggling with right now with the state of our world, our country.

Can you think of other examples of stories like this in your own life? Something work related, connected to creativity or expression, something personal, or something like politics, the news, the world? A bad review, negative feedback, an aggressive teacher, an insulting bully. A reader unsubscribing. A bunch of readers unsubscribing. Losing our work, leaving a notebook on a bus, a computer malfunction. Someone stealing an idea. Not getting credited or paid. Losing a collaborative partner to an argument or a move. Writer’s block. Rejection. Another rejection. Two more rejections. A favorite supply company going out of business or changing a design/formula. A broken instrument. Damaged film. Someone who didn’t show up. Someone who did show up. Losing a lucky talisman or sentimental object. Losing a job. Results we didn’t want. Anything not going to plan. There are plenty of things that can confuse us, get us down, demoralize us. And it’s 1000% okay to feel mad, sad, to feel low, to grieve, to feel fear, to need to take some time. It’s okay to need some space to reflect, to think, to process. All of these things are not only natural, but they are so important. It’s just when they rob us of too much of our joy or steal us of our process that we need to take action. So when we are ready, when the lesson is understood, we need to tie up our boots and keep going as best as we can.

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**SIDE BAR**

I do think there is another separate conversation to be had about AI and what happened here - when and how AI shows up in our lives, when we’re aware of it, and when it sneaks in and disguises itself so well. When we trust it blindly. I’ve never once used Chat GPT - I didn’t even like the experience just now of typing out the name. I know that AI has its place of importance in modern technology and I think it’s an excellent tool to be used for things like western medicine and science, *in tandem with a human being,* to double check findings or make informed decisions, sure. But in the realm of creativity, and most especially used in writing, I just cannot accept or get behind it. Maybe I’m being a curmudgeon or too old fashioned, hyper protective of our craft, and/or worried about the direction this is going, but I just don’t like it. I love the tedium of editing, the exploration of research, trudging through the murky waters of putting together any sort of difficult writing puzzle, from an essay to an email. I never want to ask AI for help, not only because I find that disturbing, but also because I love to do all those things myself. I would rather take much longer to do something to the best of my own ability than do something very quickly that came from an external method. What do you think? Where is AI useful? Where do you use it? Where would you never want to use it?

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Now I would love to know, what motivates you? What drives you forward? Is there a community or person or platform that pushes you each week to do your best? That helps to keep you accountable? Is there anything secret or peculiar like a pretty rectangle with numbers on it? I am so curious to hear what encourages you forward throughout the day, each new day, week, month, etc in anything and everything.

Please share anything you like in the comments! I look forward so much to reading your thoughts as always.

Sending good energy to you all and again, THANK YOU so much for everything. And thank you to Substack - I’m sorry I was mad at you. Sometimes there are reflections to make and lessons to be learned, and sometimes we might veer off course for a moment, but we can always take back the reigns. Thank you for being there for me in my process, for being such a supportive and engaging community, and for motivating me each week to continue to share. Tomorrow morning, when I open my email and see that funny rectangle with the numbers on it, I will smile and be reminded of this all. :)

When it comes to anything, it’s always good to pause and check in on our intentions, why we decided to do something in the first place, and what we’re hoping to communicate or achieve. It says it right there on my About page:

“I am looking forward to sharing more on this all, to delving into and expanding more widely on topics and ideas than I’ve been able to on Instagram, and with the added ability to incorporate other mediums, too - and I look forward to learning from you also, to discovering new things together with each new day. I’m thankful to my mom for her suggestion that I start a Substack of my own, and I have a good feeling that I’ll really like being in this new space with you all.” :)

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Here are some nice Motivation Quotes <3

“Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.” -Arthur Ashe

“It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop.” -Confucius

“Don't watch the clock; do what it does. Keep going.” -Sam Levenson

“If you fell down yesterday, stand up today.” -H.G. Wells

“Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time.” -Thomas Edison

“Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better.” -Samuel Beckett

“With the new day comes new strength and new thoughts.” -Eleanor Roosevelt

“We may encounter many defeats but we must not be defeated.” -Maya Angelou

“The secret of getting ahead is getting started” -Mark Twain

“You can't cross the sea merely by standing and staring at the water.” -Rabindranath Tagore

“Do not wait to strike till the iron is hot; but make it hot by striking.” -William Butler Yeats

“No bird soars too high if he soars with his own wings.” -William Blake

“Perseverance is failing 19 times and succeeding the 20th.” -Julie Andrews

“Do not wait; the time will never be 'just right.' Start where you stand, and work with whatever tools you may have at your command, and better tools will be found as you go along.” -George Herbert

“The harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.” -Thomas Paine

“Never give up, for that is just the place and time that the tide will turn.” -Harriet Beecher Stowe

“You just can't beat the person who never gives up.” -Babe Ruth

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Which is your favorite? :) Which can you recruit to motivate you forward this week? Because I struggle sometimes with ‘analysis paralysis’ or thinking ‘my pencil is not sharp enough,’ I really like this quote very much: “Do not wait; the time will never be 'just right.' Start where you stand, and work with whatever tools you may have at your command, and better tools will be found as you go along.” -George Herbert

In fact, I think I’ll write that in a notebook right now. Maybe I’ll print it out, too and hang it up above my desk so I can see it whenever I need to. :)

Have a wonderful Sunday and I hope this message provides some inspiration, motivation, and encouragement to bring into the week tomorrow. Thank you, again!!