Outpace Your Cringe

I’ve discovered this mindset that’s made a huge difference for me. I call it “Outpace Your Cringe.”

I used to love drawing. I’ve been doing it ever since kindergarten. But then I learned about perspective, and I couldn’t do it perfectly. That’s embarrassing as hell! I had to quit drawing altogether!

I used to love linguistics. I started a blog where I would break down jokes using linguistic analysis. But then I discovered that I made a mistake in one of my posts, using a term incorrectly. That’s embarrassing as hell! I had to close the blog altogether!

I used to love singing… and you know the drill.

I put out a fresh update for my app every week. Despite the app being ugly and lacking a ton of features, I still love it and am proud of it.

Because I outpaced my cringe.

I set myself a weekly release schedule, which is a tight schedule. And during the week I’m too busy brainstorming the new feature, experimenting with new marketing strategies, and also writing the actual code. I don’t have the time to feel the embarrassment that I used to feel.

Link from Rhett & Link also experiences similar things when he started the YouTube channel:

"When you do so many episodes of Good Mythical Morning, you get to a point where you just have to go with it."

For Simpler tasks: Start a Pomodoro timer, and force yourself to finish it within the timeframe. Skipping steps or cutting corners, do whatever it takes to make it happen.

For Harder tasks: Open your calendar app, and schedule frequent, periodic appointments with yourself to work on it. And just deliver on time every time. Even better, if you may, just build in public, and let people hold you accountable.

The point is to make an iteration of whatever you want to make. Don’t give yourself time to doubt.

Instead of judging your work, just keep going! Don’t worry if your first attempt isn’t great. Make another one, either completely new or improved from the first.

Keep making!

Before you know it, you’ll end up making something good-ish. It might still not meet your standards, but you’ll be confident that you can make a better one in the next iteration.

Yes, this whole article is one of the new marketing strategies that I’m experimenting with for my app😈

And before I convince you to try out my app, let me show you some screenshots to better strengthen my point.

Here’s how the text editor in my app has changed over time. It only took 3 iterations to make a huge improvement.

Now that you’ve seen my app, don’t you want to learn more about it?

Try out my app on App Store

P.S. This article itself is also an attempt of me trying to restart a blog. Of course, I’m not entirely satisfied with my writing. But I’ll keep writing to outpace the cringe!