How to Keep Going When Nothing Seems to Be Working
You’re doing everything that is supposed to be done.
You’re showing up, working every single day towards your goals, creating content, talking to people, and improving.
But nothing seems to be happening.
Results are still the same, and feedback doesn’t exist.
But this doesn’t mean something is wrong with the way you’re doing things.
It just means you’re in the hardest phase of building anything.
And this phase is where most people quit.
Here’s what I’m doing to be able to keep going, especially in this phase.
The Mental Battle of Starting From Zero
There’s a gap that exists between the effort you’re constantly putting in and the results you are getting from it.
When starting something worth building, whether it’s a business, a blog, a personal brand, or even a skill, this gap will be greater than anything.
This phase can be called sandbox, valley of death, or plateau, in fitness.
Everything has its own version, and if you’re reading this post, you’re probably on it too.
But like I said, this doesn’t appear because you’re doing something wrong.
Most people never get through this phase because they quit.
Not because they’re not as talented as you, or because they aren’t working as hard as you.
They never get through this phase because this phase is invisible.
And invisible progress seems like no progress.
Why It Feels Like Nothing Is Working
The feeling of nothing working usually comes from measuring the wrong data at the wrong time.
You're Measuring Outcomes Instead of Inputs
Focusing on followers, views, money, or traffic is ruining your motivation, discipline, and mindset in general.
These are outcomes, and when you’re up to month 6, these aren’t worth looking at daily.
It’s like weighting yourself every hour to see if you lost any weight.
The data isn’t meaningful enough for you to look at it.
Focus on what you can control, not the other way.
You're Comparing Your Process to Other People's Results
If you already read some of my other posts, I always talk about this.
But this is the hard truth most people don’t realize.
You keep seeing people online on your dream places, cars, and lifestyle in general.
Then you get overwhelmed because even though you’re working as hard as you can, you aren’t near them.
And sometimes you may feel like you’re working much harder than them.
But I want you to realize something, what you’re seeing online is their results, not what they went through.
Most times they went exactly through what you’re going through right now.
The difference is that they kept going.
And I’m sure they felt exactly how you’re feeling right now.
But they realized what would be the cost of quitting, and decided that their dreams are bigger than the effort they have to put in.
You’re Thinking It Should Be Faster Than What It Is
I know how you’re feeling. That’s because I thought so too.
You’re working as hard as you can for the last 3 to 6 months, some of you even more.
And you think you should’ve been seeing results by now.
But this is not how this works.
It will take time, effort, and a lot of consistency from you.
Because if it was easy, anyone else would be doing it.
But just because it isn’t as fast as you’d like, doesn’t mean it isn’t already working.
I want you to think what should be faster.
Money? Traffic? Emails subscribers? Feedback?
Make sure to have your goals well designed with you.
Because most people don’t know what they want in this phase, they just know what they want in general.
You should be thinking monthly. If you keep focusing on what you can get at year 5 in your 6 months, you are only ruining your mindset.
Signs Things Are Actually Improving
Your Skills Are Compounding
Everything you do is helping you become better at your next thing.
Have you ever noticed that content is easier to make compared to your first month?
You aren’t using guides as frequently as you used to.
Tools aren’t being used to do the work for you, but to help you improve it.
These skills may feel invisible in the short term, but they are compounding day after day until it becomes an advantage.
Your Foundation Is Being Built
Like your skills, your foundation is building day after day.
If you’re a blogger, each post is helping you on making Google trust you.
Rankings are improving, posts are indexed much faster than before.
If you’re a content creator, you may not notice after one month, but after at least 6 months you’ll see older posts, pins, or even videos suddenly receiving more likes than usual.
That’s how most algorithms work, you just expect it to work in less than 6 months, especially if you have a recent account, and not investing money on it.
The Biggest Mistake People Make When Results Are Slow
There are multiple mistakes I see people making when results are slow or aren’t there.
The most common one is quitting. Most people decide to quit the moment things aren’t going as expected.
This can be when they’re building a business, or even in their personal life.
The gym isn’t giving results as fast as they’d like. They quit.
They aren’t improving on learning a new language. They quit.
And this can be applied to almost every example.
Most people can’t overcome the habit of quitting when something gets out of hand.
But the biggest mistake isn’t quitting. Because when you do that, you know you don’t have any chances of succeeding.
Changing Direction
This is the biggest mistake people make.
Why is this worse than quitting?
Because when you change directions, you think it will be easier, faster, and better.
But after the same time period that made them quit, they realize again that it’s all the same.
Everything takes time, and the problem isn’t the business model, language, skill, or even book. It’s their mindset.
They’re throwing away all the invisible progress they’ve made to start again from zero, just because they didn’t see the results.
I know that sometimes you can be choosing something that isn’t what should be chosen.
But in most cases that isn’t the answer.
Slow progress is still progress.
And those who make it through this phase are the ones who learn to see small progress, treating it as evidence that the direction is right
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How to Keep Going When Nothing Seems to Be Working
I could give you a list of reasons on how to keep going like any other motivational post.
But the biggest reason I can give you is for you to look at your current situation and see if you’re pleased with it.
Are you happy with your current state? Or do you wish to have other things accomplished?
For some money, for others learning new skills, finding happiness, or even fame.
If the answer is no, then resonate where you want to be.
That is the best help I can give you.
I used to look at data, and tried to separate it from my feelings.
I also started to look at timelines of months instead of days.
But that may help you in the first week, but after that, you’ll start to feel like it again.
The best motive you have to keep going is your final goal, your final destination.
If you want to change your life, you know that you need to go through all of these phases.
This is hard, it will continue to be.
But like I said in one of my last posts, even if you fail, your worst-case scenario is everyone else’s reality.
When you see people online where you want to be, do you really think they made it in three months?
That’s years of work, endless hours of bad sleep, not hanging out with their friends, and even not doing something they liked doing.
And that’s because they knew what they had to sacrifice to succeed.
That’s the cost of opportunity.
You’re giving up the benefit of something by choosing something else.
What’s your priority? Easy choices make a hard life; hard choices make an easy life.
What Happens If You Don’t Quit
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Most people never find out.
They quit after three months, feel exactly like you’re feeling, and decide it’s not working.
Then they tell themselves they’ll try again later, when they feel ready.
But Someday never comes
But for those who stay, like you, here’s what happens.
Compound Effect Becomes Visible
Everything that you build while feeling pointless starts to finally connect.
The content you created builds trust, and that trust generates leads, which leads to clients, or subscribers.
And then you’ll finally realize that everything you did and sacrificed during that phase, was actually needed to build the foundation you will have in the future.
What You Build Becomes Yours Permanently
This is the most important aspect. And this is why learning is much better than receiving.
The skills you learned, the audience you gained, all the systems. Nobody can take it away from you.
You can lose your money, your account, even your business or job. But you cannot lose what you built inside.
If you made it once, you can make it again. Chase the skill that makes the money, not the money itself.
That stays with you forever.
The First Result Arrives
It’s never how you imagined.
It will just be an aspect of consistency. A client may find you because they keep seeing you in their feed for the last months.
An older content suddenly hits someone’s feed.
But it’s real. Not because of what you receive, whether it’s money, reputation, or something else.
But because it finally seems real. If you are like I was, I never believed that I could do anything online.
Not because it seems hard, but it isn’t. It’s just consistency, learning from mistakes, and keeping improving.
But because people make it seem so easy. But once you get your first results, you’ll feel a moment of relief.
And then your motivation comes again, along with your consistency that was built over all these months.
Final Thoughts
Nothing that’s worth building will give you results before you actually earned them.
Just because its silence doesn’t mean it’s time to stop.
Everyone you admire online at some point were in your position. Doing it without proof that would pay off, or validation.
But they knew what they wanted and worked so hard to get it.
Keep going. Not because it will get easier, because it won’t. But because stopping guarantees you never find out what you were capable of.
And you deserve to find you.
