In the previous article I wrote about the 90 day challenge I’m currently doing where I build a lead generation system from scratch and sharing everything along the way.
One reason behind this challenge is to give you weekly updates to draw inspiration and lessons from. But I quickly noticed that (in the beginning at least) the work should focus on volume and not on strategy.
Strategy at this stage is just procrastination, an excuse for not doing the work. I want to talk about this because I’ve lived it.
Strategy vs Volume
For any project, business or objective you want to achieve, you need to spend as little time as possible on paper or in your head. Of course, planning and documentation are important steps in the process but they only take you so far.
When you are waiting for inspiration to strike or for things to connect, you’re actually looking for control. Thinking and strategising give you a false feeling of progress. In reality there’s no movement.
It’s like a puzzle. You don’t sit there analysing where each piece goes and only start when you have the whole image mapped out. You pick up a piece and try it. Then another. The picture reveals itself through doing.
This is called volume.
Volume
But volume isn’t about being sloppy. It’s about getting enough reps to find what works. You can’t edit a blank page. You can’t optimise something that doesn’t exist.
Skill comes from repetition, not preparation. The first ten attempts will probably be rough. But by attempt twenty, you start seeing patterns: what works, what doesn’t, what’s worth doubling down on.
The project in your head is ready to be put into practice, YOU are the one who isn’t ready.
The Cost of Waiting
The longer you wait, the harder it gets. Life doesn’t pause while you prepare.
Responsibilities stack up: mortgage, commitments, expectations. Each one narrows your options. The window doesn’t close suddenly. It shrinks slowly until one day you realise you’re no longer choosing to stay.
You’re stuck.
In life, everything has a cost. Action costs you comfort. Waiting costs you time.
The difference is that the cost of action buys you experience, feedback and momentum. The cost of waiting buys you nothing. You pay it and stay exactly where you are.
I know this because I lived it. Years in a learning loop: courses, articles, frameworks…it felt like progress. But each thing I learned only revealed how much I didn’t know, which made me feel like I needed to learn even more before I could start.
The preparation became procrastination.
And procrastination is the poor man’s currency, it doesn’t buy you anything.
Here’s what I’ve realised: you only need enough knowledge to know where to start and what the first few steps look like. The rest you figure out by doing. The path doesn’t exist until you walk it.
Leap of Faith
When are you ready to have kids? Or to start a business? Or to make any big change that scares you?
The answer is never. You never feel ready because there are too many variables and there will always be reasons not to.
You need to become flexible in your approach and believe that you’ll find a way to make things work in spite of knowledge gaps.
In my case, I sat down and asked myself a simple question: am I actually doing the work, or am I just telling myself I am?
It’s a fair question. It shouldn’t upset you. But it did upset me because I didn’t like the answer.
My brain started looking for answers and solutions to help me push forward and I came up with this:
Your future self will have the ability to overcome the problems your present self has because of the skills you are building right now
So I made a bet that I’d figure it out as I go. That doing teaches faster than preparing. That I can handle whatever comes.
One thing I knew for certain: I didn’t want to stay on the side I was on.
What matters in the end is: are you doing the work or not?
That’s it for now.
Dragos