Everything is Reps

At my first job, only a quarter of my incoming class was supposed to be fired, but we hit that number in a few months. By year-end, half my incoming class was let go.

The most stressful times were not the ones where I had the most work, but the ones where I felt like I had no control.

In those moments, you basically have three choices: give up, half-ass it (which is a version of giving up), or push through and give it your all.

It may sound cliche, but my mother told me when I was young that if I did my best, I wouldn't regret anything.

So instead of mind-numbing labor, each manually-checked row in an Excel file became a rep of self-discipline.

Each email summary became an exercise to practice synthesis skills.

And each midnight line of code became another rep of engineering craftsmanship.

If it didn't kill me, it would make me stronger. At the very least, I would get practice.

So now, when I feel like I don't have control, or it's a grind, or things get hard, I tell myself that...

You're lucky to be doing what you're doing, even if it doesn't feel that way in the moment. With struggle and difficulty, you'll learn and your skills will compound.

Life is truly hard in many places, but often, our lives are just internally hard. Keep perspective and find levers of control when you're feeling helpless, even if it's just the mental framing of treating work like practice.

If it can't kill you, work hard, because it will make you stronger.

At the very minimum, if you run the race, you'll get faster.

Everything is reps.