Don’t make it a thing until it’s ready to be a thing.
It’s advice I give to people when they ask how to start a project, process, or initiative. It’s also something I tell myself — often — to calm that overly excited part of me that loves to bite off more than it can chew.
It’s the grand initiative that comes out of nowhere with great fanfare and clap emojis… only for things to go silent three months later.
It’s the domain name you spent days brainstorming — that perfect, ethereal, made-up word that totally captures your groundbreaking side project. You buy it. You feel proud. You imagine the launch. And twelve months later… the domain quietly expires. The idea never left the station.
(I’ve done both.)
You get a spark — a brilliant idea, a project, a process — and you want to announce it. To share it. To validate it through applause. And maybe you even convince yourself it’s accountability. But more often than not, it’s performance. It’s comfort dressed as courage.
Atomic
This stuff is really tough. Because what you’re trying to do is change how things are done — to change how you and others think about things, how we show up, how we work, how we interact and engage with each other.
Learned behaviors and habits that we try so hard not to shake. Comfort zones that we try so hard not to leave.
The best way I’ve found to even stand a chance? Start small. Show up. Every day.
Become relentless in showing up and getting it done — even when no one’s looking. Because eventually, someone will. Maybe three months later, on some random untelevised Thursday, someone notices.
They’re impressed by what they saw that day — not realizing you’ve got receipts for every Thursday before it.
Reps
It’s less about making it a thing — and more about becoming the person who does the thing.
You don’t become fit by announcing you’re going to the gym. You get fit by eating boring food and running in circles, by lifting heavy things only to put them back down again — and doing it every day. Especially when you don’t want to.
At work, instead of proclaiming how important documentation is —megaphone in one hand, shaking fist in the other — maybe just… write some.
Today. Tomorrow. Every day for four months.
It doesn’t matter what it is. Maybe you updated an old org chart. Clarified how a feature works. Or finally wrote down how to book PTO — because you were tired of searching Slack and seeing only other people asking the same question. So you figured it out. You wrote it down. Then you did it again. And again. (And again.)
And this thing can be about anything. Documentation, writing tests, creating flow diagrams, naming layers, or even just saying hi.
Receipts
This matters in three ways:
- You prove it can be done. Most skeptics don’t doubt the value — they doubt the doability.
- You show how it can be done. Copy-pasting existing work is always easier than inventing from scratch.
- You understand the problem. By doing the work yourself, you see why it’s hard — and maybe make it a little easier for the next person.
Share
Don’t be silent. But don’t be loud, either.
You don’t need a multi-channel campaign to broadcast that you’re changing the world with your shiny new widget or life-changing process.
Just share the right things, in the right places, with the right people. (Right. Easier said then done. How’s about this.)
A post about how you fixed something. A screenshot of a cleanup. A note about how you noticed something off — and decided to do something about it.
That’s enough.
Because if you keep doing that — for three weeks or three months — people will notice. They'll know you do it because... of course you did.
They’ll talk about it. Maybe they’ll share it. And maybe, just maybe, they’ll start doing it too.
Make
You can’t force momentum. You can only create consistency. The thing that becomes a “Thing” earns it. It grows from evidence, not enthusiasm.
Don’t make it a thing.
Do the thing.
And let the thing make itself.