the friction forge

Today was the first day where I faced some resistance writing since beginning this 100 Articles in 100 Weekdays pact.

Honestly, I thought it was going to happen sooner.

The first 7 days of writing, I established a good flow. I did my writing pretty much first thing in the morning, once I got some coffee in my system and did my obligatory reading. But this morning, I didn’t write because I had an early meeting. And it threw me out of wack. So here we are, at nearly 5pm, finally sitting down to write.

And that’s ok.

The whole premise of this pact was just to create the daily OUTPUT of writing. Follow my curiosity. And not let any feeling of “I have to” turn this into an unenjoyable task.

So today is an odd juxtaposition of enjoying the act of simply sitting here, writing, being present…and also just showing up. Stacking bricks, carrying water, chopping wood, whatever you want to call it.

You need days of greater friction to really appreciate the low friction days, where whatever you’re doing feels like cutting through butter. Where you’re really flowing.

It’s as true with writing as it is across most other disciplines: exercising, meditating, working, etc. The friction creates resilience, flexibility and brings into focus what you really want.

The more high friction days you can work through, the more low friction days you’ll have, AND the more those high friction days start to become low friction days because you have proven tools to do what you want to do in spite of resistance.

How you navigate friction becomes the forge for your life design.