Rest is important, but so is doing the work.

Even though I’m privileged enough to live a creative life (“privileged” meaning: only working a full-time job if I feel like it, continuing to pay a car note on an Audi when I could get around just as easily in a paid-for something else, pouring money into multiple business ventures, getting a doctorate in education for fun…), I absolutely don’t feel like working every single day.

While I’m dying to work on my personal projects most days of the week, that’s often because I know I simply won’t have the time or the energy to work on what I’m passionate about later in the day, tomorrow, or next week. (I am often fighting my body to avoid falling asleep before 10:00 pm each night, and I usually feel pretty done with working by late afternoon….)

Do I actually FEEL like writing every day, dancing every day, or creating digital content for my businesses every day? Definitely not. Do I thrive from a sense of accomplishment, purpose, and productivity? Definitely do. So, that helps. But even that’s often not enough to cause me to want to do the work.

What really, really does it for me is reminding myself that I owe it to me. I owe it to my present self and to my future self to give it my all, to not waste my talents, and to work as hard as I possibly can each day to be the person that I want to be. I owe it to myself to go after my dreams like there’s no tomorrow. And, most importantly, I owe it to myself to commit to my practice of doing the work every day.

Cheers to doing the work that’s good for us, even when we don’t feel like it!

Saumirah