last week i sent a message to my paid subscribers letting them know i wouldnāt be publishing anything for the week.
i had a lot going on and limited energy. i know better than to apologize, because i donāt believe we should have to apologize for lapses in our āconsistency.ā
but when there is money involved (even small-ish amounts of money) it perverts the relationship. iām no longer rae dohar who puts their ideas out organically. i am rae dohar, the professional, who has promised to uphold a schedule.
no one asked me to do this, by the way. i did it voluntarily. partly because, for better and / or for worse, without a public commitment, i would truly never get anything done. it is the accountability i have with you all, the fact that i said iād do something and even just one of you might remember, that pulls me to do it. otherwise, i would be puttering around in my garden, ideas rattling around in my head, no one to hear them but the plants.
anyway, last week bled into this week, and my āto-doā list didnāt get any shorter, and my attention span didnāt get much longer, and monday came and went without anything to publish. not because i hadnāt written anything. but because i wasnāt satisfied with what iād written. i told myself, ādone is better than perfectā and published it on tuesday. i am still not exactly happy with it. but considering it was already a week behind the event that inspired it, and considering that a week is somehow now a very long time in internet world, i figured it wasnāt worth stressing over.
honestly, i am not a perfectionist.
but if you want to know more about what it feels like for me on the inside, when i write, there is something within me, a sort of ā¦ quality control? something that audits and intuits my work, perceives whether or not itās a full-bodied expression of my thoughts. it just feels ready.
i donāt care about being right or good or perfect. but i care about whether or not it feels done to me. iāve long since stopped needing to ājust click post!ā to get over my fear of being seen or heard. i write to share the thoughts i believe are worth sharing.
but somehow, on monday, i fell a little short. itās not a big deal, by the way. i mean, no one sent me an email being like wtf kind of garbĆ”ge is this. š but even if other people didnāt care much, i did and do. and i havenāt quite got back āinto the groove.ā
so monday became thursday and now as youāre reading this thursday has become friday, and once again i am coming up blank.
but honestly, past rae has written thousands upon thousands of gorgeous words. and past rae, rae from just shy of a year ago, knew exactly what to say in this moment. so will share it with you, with us, now. because our work is not disposable, use once and throw away. and our worth is not tied to how many times we can be novel and new.
no one is consistent.
no one is consistent.
no one is consistent.
no one is consistent.
no one is consistent. and billions of dollars are thrown away every year by individuals who believe that they can pay someone else to teach them this magical, mythical superpower: consistency.
but consistency (as in, showing up the same way every day) is not real. it doesnāt exist. you canāt optimize or hack or manifest your way into it because itās fake.
and whatās nuts is just how many people buy into this lore. iād say the vast majority of clients iāve seen over the past several years of full-time coaching all tell me some version of the same thing.
something like: i have ten ideas, but i only do one. i procrastinate. sometimes i donāt want to work. sometimes i donāt feel inspired in my life. some days i donāt want to stick to any of my practices. i quit. i feel so tired sometimes. sometimes i resent my job (even if itās their own business).
babe, iāve got some news.
the only reason you think inconsistency is a āproblemā is because someone keeps selling you a āsolutionā for it.
but itās not a problem. itās totally normal. and the most successful people you can think of ā people whose work you admire, people you respect ā i promise you, feel the same way.
everyone has highs and lows. everyone experiences loss. everyone has āoff days.ā everyone says something they didnāt mean to say. everyone gets diarrhea. everyone embarrasses themselves. everyone makes mistakes. everyone forgets something important. everyone occasionally hurts someone they love. everyone has days they feel less or more inspired. everyone is human. just like you.
no one can sell you a way out of that. there isnāt one.
because consistency is a lie you tell yourself to make yourself feel bad for where you are.
no one feels the same way every day. no one has zero demands on their time. no one has perfect health and perfect luck and perfect energy levels.
we can, of course, work to heal and grow and learn. and iād argue itās a meaningful way to spend oneās life.
but the obsession with consistency is nothing more than another capitalist scam. making you think your humanness is the problem and selling you a solution. so you can be a better, more perfect, more worthy worker. and when youāre not, itās your fault.
well. i donāt feel the same way every day. sometimes iām sick. sometimes iām happy. sometimes iām in spain. sometimes i fight with my dad. sometimes my mom gets cancer and dies. sometimes my dog throws up. sometimes my husband gets into a car accident. sometimes i receive a $15k payment. sometimes i owe the IRS money. sometimes i find out there was gluten in the wasabi peas.
ā¦and in all of those seasons, i serve my people. i create. i make money. i cry. i laugh. i live my life.
because a kind of consistency ā a different version not rooted in sameness and earned worthiness ā exists and is available to you.
ily.
this was originally an instagram post, both a text-based post and a caption, and it has been edited slightly for substack.
rae dohar is a coach, writer, and teacher who is both human and inconsistent. if you were considering joining reclamation, the doors have closed because it is full. if you would like to work with rae, you might want to consider a weeklong intensive or even the year of 1:1.