I Can’t Keep Up

I’ve started a lot of things in my life.

When I was much younger, I wanted to write books. In fact, I co-authored one with my sister and we titled it “My Mother Killed Me” (that was a hell of a title, lol).

Although we never published it, we cut it into the form of a real storybook, made a cover for it, and I made some drawings on the front cover. I don’t remember what happened to the book afterwards.

As I grew older, I developed a lot of interest in drawing. Although my drawings now are so ugly they can scare off a 3-year-old, I actually used to make nice drawings back then. My two favourites were that of an ancient warrior and the then governor of Kwara State, AbdulFattah Ahmed. After a while, I lost interest in drawing.

At some point again, I went back to writing.

This time, I was more ambitious. I wanted to really publish a book. Funny enough, I actually wrote the entire book. It was a mid-sized novel, and I titled it “Regime of Imperialism” (at least nobody is killing anybody here). The book turned out to be really great — according to my sister and my computer teacher. Only two people saw the book before I lost the file when the laptop crashed.

Then in my senior years in secondary school, I started a series titled “Success in School,” alongside a classmate. I was a trailblazing straight-A student at that point, so I had enough credibility to give that advice. I kept up with it for a while, wrote a few articles in the series, and then…nothing happened. That series never got out.

I moved on. This time, I wanted to transform a whole nation of 200 million people (lol). I founded an NGO called The National Frontiers (TNF). In fact, I teamed up with the same classmate above, contributed some money, bought a domain, created a website, and www.nationalfrontiers.com was live (notice the past tense).

Luckily, I was able to able to attract a couple of really brilliant people and we did a lot of amazing things. I don’t have the real numbers, but I can say that we were directly involved in training up to 300 people.

And then, TNF began to die. Or to put it better, I started to kill it. I couldn’t pull the team together and I basically went mute. I’m still mute…

Tech was my next stop. It was the big thing. I bought a Complete Java Masterclass course on Udemy and I was bound to become a tech bro. Except that I became an inconsistent bro instead.

Learning Java was super exciting. But just like the other cases, I couldn’t get myself to keep up. The course was supposed to take 3 months. 3 years later, I’ve not even finished 25% of the course.

I jumped again to writing. Not books this time, but marketing. I became a Content Marketer. I did pretty great with this one. Kept up much longer, but I never really did it 100%. I did a couple of other things too.

I jumped, and jumped, and then jumped some more. 99% of the time, I jumped before making any real impact on that thing.

Now, if I wanted to pacify myself, I would have said I’m a polymath or multipotentialite (yuck). But those are just fancy ways of saying “I can’t hold on to one thing long enough.”

Do I regret not keeping up with those things? Maybe. Maybe if I kept up, I would have been much better off.

Does it hurt? Yes. Absolutely.

I see people doing the things I didn’t hang on to, and doing incredibly well in those things. Makes me feel like “I can do a lot better than this guy, but I never stayed through.”

What’s the catch for you?

I don’t know.

I don’t know if I should tell you to focus on one thing only.

Or maybe that’s what I should tell you?

Ok…yeah. Bro, sis, focus on one thing for enough time before you jump.

How much time is enough time?

Iono. My best guess is 2 years.

Whoa! That’s a heck lotta time. Feels like a century (lol).

Anyways, I think that’s how long it usually takes to really create something tangible.

I don’t like the Gen Z debate, but we do have a problem with patience & gratification. Everybody wants to get big quick. We all want to blow. We all want that big break that would put us in the spotlight.

Here’s something I suggest you consider:

Before you conclude that basketball is not working for you, try training hardcore on it for a year or two.

Before you conclude that tech is not for you, try completing that course, working on projects, and sourcing jobs for a year or two.

Before you conclude that you’re not cut out for fashion design, hang in there for a little while more.

Remember. It usually takes a year or two before results actually materialize into something big. Play the long game. You’re not 50 years old.

Source: I no fit lie give you.