Sunday thoughts: The effort is enough

For a few days I have been carrying a quote around with me: "The effort is enough". I got it from the book "Ego is the enemy" by Ryan Holiday. It's a fantastic sentence that exudes incredible serenity.

This quote means that success should be measured by the effort we put into our goals, rather than merely looking at the outcome. And this basically aligns with my view of goals: focus on the things you have control over, rather than things that are out of your control.

Making a video that you can be proud of yourself is 100% in your control. However, you have no control over whether your video gets over 1 million views on YouTube and goes viral. As a software developer, I have full control over programming software that I like and that serves my purposes. But I have no control over whether that software or app gets listed on the bestseller list of app stores and generates thousands of downloads. It's up to me whether I write this blog post or write an entire book. But whether I win the Pulitzer Prize with it is beyond my control.

The quote generally reminds me of the serenity of the Stoics and Epictetus' famous phrase: "The way to happiness is not to worry about anything that is beyond our control."

The phrase "the effort is enough" gives me pause for a moment and helps me to refocus on the thing itself. Rather enjoying the journey instead of just focusing on the destination. If we finally get to the destination of our goals, then we are just there. Most of the time, however, we are wandering along the path. And it is this path and the journey that we should enjoy.

Things I've done in the last week

Drone project: I continue to work on my DIY camera drone: currently I'm developing a landing gear. The challenge here: I want to attach a gimbal for a GoPro underneath the drone and here the feet of the landing gear should not be visible in the field of view of the camera.

Article: I wrote a post about my 3 most important productivity rules that help me move my projects forward more effectively.

Quote of the week

I've never tried this before, so I'm totally confident I can do it.

- Pippi Longstocking

Song of the Week