Staying with the work (When speed is tempting)

Lately, the urge to speed up shows up more often than I expect. I say this knowing that my January aim was to start slow with purpose.

It comes in waves. Some weeks feel full. Very productive, moving, and I'm alive. Other weeks feel quieter, slower, and harder to measure. And even when the work looks like it’s moving forward from the outside, I catch myself asking the same question again and again:

Am I doing enough?

Enough for what?
Enough for who?

I’m not always sure.

We’re already a couple of months into the year. There’s still time, plenty of it even, but that awareness cuts both ways. It sharpens everything. It makes me look at each week and wonder how it connects to what I’m trying to work on and build longer term.

From the outside, it probably looks like I’m doing a lot. I know my friends and family think so. But from the inside, it never quite feels that way. I don’t think that tension I'm feeling comes from laziness or a lack of ambition. I think it comes from overthinking. And possibly even caring about direction, quality, and about whether my effort is actually compounding or just filling space.

That’s usually when the urge to speed up appears. Not when I’m behind, but when I’m juggling too much at once. And boy can I end up spinning a lot in the air.

When speed starts to feel like a solution, I know it rarely is.

I’ve been training for a marathon for the last 5 months. Three days a week. 2x short and 1x Long run — sometimes up to three hours. This period has been striping me back. There’s nowhere to hide. And when you’re running for that long, there are no ways to multitask. No ways to take shortcuts.

What it’s given me isn’t just fitness, but time to think.

About how I see myself.
About how I want to be seen.
And about the gap between the two.

At work, I feel needed. The work isn’t flashy, but it’s real. We’re building things from the ground up, and that feels different from where I’ve been before. It’s steady. It’s meaningful.

The work I’m staying with right now isn’t exciting — but it is rewarding. Not in a loud way. In a useful way. The work has impact. There’s something grounding about being relied on. About knowing that what you’re contributing matters, even if it doesn’t announce itself.

As I’ve gotten older, I’ve realised I don’t want to be performing for anyone. And it's funny I say that; me, the kid who once loved Performance and Drama.

A Modern Day Pursuit of Love, Meaning & Happiness

The people I work with see the skill, the care, the judgement that goes into the work. They don’t need convincing. And for those who haven’t met me yet, I don’t know if the work I’m making right now is even for them. This is all strange place to be in. Not creating for an audience, but still wanting the work to be meaningful and understandable when someone does eventually find it.

Now, I don’t feel the need to justify what I’m working on. I have a body of work now. A personal site. A studio site. Relationships I trust. And that helps. It centres me.

What’s harder is the lack of continuity. Finding clients hasn’t been the issue — that’s improved year on year. What’s missing is someone staying. Someone saying, “Let’s build this together.” When I imagine that moment, I don’t picture them being impressed by output or speed. I imagine them seeing something quieter: dedication, care, and a willingness to think long-term. A collaborator. A partner. Someone they can lean on.

That’s what I want the work to signal — even if it takes time.

The word craftsman keeps coming back to me.

I picked it up years ago, listening to Seth Godin talk about the difference between factory work and studio work. Between creating at scale and creating with care. And that's what I'm trying to find out for myself. What is it that i'm making?

I don’t want to produce things that are easily replaceable.
I don’t want to rely on hype instead of practice.
I don’t want to make work I feel disconnected from, just to stay busy.

At the same time, I’m aware that holding too tightly to any identity can become limiting. And I don't want to limited by my work. So maybe being a craftsman isn’t the end point. Maybe it’s just a phase for attention.

What I do know is this: the idea of picking up work purely for the sake of it feels dangerous to me. And i don't want that.

That’s where the cracks start to show.
That’s where relationships weaken.
That’s where the work stops holding meaningful value.

I don’t mind being invisible right now. What worries me more is being seen for work that doesn’t reflect what I care about.

I’d rather take longer and let the right people arrive slowly than rush and invite the wrong ones in. For now, I choose to stay with the work. I'm learning quietly, letting ideas move from my head into something tangible. Not performing. Not rushing. Just building familiarity with the pace I can actually sustain.

I don’t know exactly where this leads yet.

But I’m trusting that staying, with attention, with care, still counts for something.