Issue #3: The Time Value of Courage

🧠 The Fear Trap

For the longest time, I could never seem to make real progress on any project I started. I was putting in 12-hour workdays, constantly tweaking and improving my work. In my mind, it was just a matter of time – I believed that as long as I never quit, I would eventually achieve something. Unfortunately, I learned the hard way that sheer persistence without the right approach can become a trap that keeps you forever stuck in place.

💡 The Story

I poured tremendous effort into each project. My day-to-day routine was intense: work long hours, refine every detail, find something – anything – to improve. On the surface, that sounds like the formula for success. But in reality, I was spinning my wheels. In terms of creating content, I kept changing directions in search of the “perfect” approach that felt comfortable yet successful.

For example, I started out making whiteboard animation videos because I didn’t want to show my face on camera. Later, I became interested in doing documentary-style analysis content, which I thought was really cool – but I shied away from it because I didn’t want to invest the huge amount of time required to learn advanced video editing. Instead of pushing through that challenge, I switched tactics again. I went through cycles of trying different content styles, essentially avoiding the very things that might have made a difference. Eventually I settled on doing simple doodle videos. To be fair, the doodle-style content did work to a small extent – I got a bit of positive feedback – but it still wasn’t what I truly wanted for the long term. In hindsight, all this content pivoting was me avoiding the harder path that I suspected would actually yield better results.

This pattern wasn’t just in my content creation. I also developed several software tools that I believed had great business potential. I would get excited about an idea, spend weeks or months coding features, polishing the interface, and adding improvements… yet never bring any of these projects to completion. I convinced myself each time that the software wasn’t “ready” to be released. I kept finding minor enhancements or reasons to delay the launch. As a result, those apps and tools lived indefinitely on my hard drive, never actually helping anyone or validating their business potential. I was working hard on them, but because I never released them, it felt like I had nothing to show for all that work.

Throughout all of this, I maintained the mindset that not quitting was the same as making progress. I thought I was being diligent by grinding day after day. But I failed to see that I was stuck in a loop: I’d start something, work endlessly on it (or hop to a new idea), and never cross the finish line with any of these projects. I was essentially forever preparing but never truly delivering.

🎭 The Effort Illusion

Just because you’re putting in the hours doesn’t mean you’ll see results. I realized I had fallen victim to what I call the Effort Illusion: the comforting but false belief that being busy equals being productive.

I would spend entire days on peripheral tasks and convince myself I was making progress. In reality, I was like a hamster on a wheel – exerting effort but staying in the same place. All that motion gave me an illusion of progress, but the meaningful moves remained undone.

The Effort Illusion is sneaky. It tricks you into feeling accomplished (“I worked so hard today!”) while your most important, scary, meaningful tasks slip further down the to-do list. I was technically working on my goals, but I was carefully tiptoeing around the actions that mattered most.

Instead, I took shelter in easier tasks that kept me in my comfort zone. It’s a cruel trick we play on ourselves: we substitute intense effort in place of intentional action. We burn time – our most precious resource – to avoid facing our fears.

🔍 Productive Procrastination

Let’s break this pattern down. How do you know when you’re stuck in the Effort Illusion? Here are some signs I recognized in myself (you might recognize them too):

• Refining instead of launching: You keep polishing a project (a video, an article, an app) endlessly. It feels like work, but often it’s fear of the audience’s reaction that keeps you from declaring it “done” and hitting publish.

• Researching instead of doing: You read, study, and prepare far beyond what is useful. You tell yourself you just need to know more before you begin, but it’s often an excuse to avoid the uncertainty of action.

• Busywork before bold moves: Your day fills up with minor tasks – reorganizing your files, tweaking your website, cleaning your desk – while that big scary task (like making a sales call, or sharing your artwork) remains untouched. The trivial tasks give you a dopamine hit of completion, while the important task gives you anxiety, so you subconsciously prioritize the former.

• Comfort-zone projects: You focus on elements of a project you’re comfortable with. For instance, editing videos quietly behind the camera instead of recording yourself on camera, or coding new features instead of marketing your product. These tasks feel productive, but they’re often just productivity theater – activity with little impact on your real goals.

All of the above are forms of procrastination disguised as productivity. It’s the art of doing something to avoid doing the one thing that truly scares you. It’s deceiving because you are making an effort – sometimes even exhausting yourself – which tricks you into feeling you’ve earned progress.

But days, weeks, even years can pass this way, and that core fearful task still looms, undone. The result? You accumulate hours of “work” with little to show for it.

🔄 Courage Over Comfort

So what’s the alternative? If the problem is avoiding what’s important out of fear, the solution is to deliberately choose courage over comfort. This sounds simple, but it’s certainly not easy. It means prioritizing the tasks that make your hand tremble a bit – the ones that carry risk of failure or criticism – and doing them first before the comfortable tasks. It means shortening the gap between knowing what to do and actually doing it.

• Identify the single most impactful thing you’re avoiding each day and commit to tackling that first. Brian Tracy famously calls this “eating the frog” – doing the hard thing first each morning. In practice, it could look like: hitting record on the camera even if your heart is pounding, or reaching out to that potential client even if you’re worried they’ll say no. I’ve started telling myself, if it makes you nervous, it’s probably the thing you need to do today.

• Realize that no amount of additional brainstorming or planning will ever eliminate the fear – you have to act in spite of it. And ironically, action itself breeds confidence. Each time you do the thing you’re afraid of, you prove to yourself you can handle it, and it makes the next time easier. In other words, courage is a muscle – you strengthen it by using it.

• Remind yourself that being smart or talented is wasted without action. There’s a saying: knowledge without action is just trivia. I used to believe that if I read enough and worked enough hours, success would eventually happen. Courage – the willingness to put youself on the line – is the catalyst that turns effort into results. Plenty of brilliant people remain stuck because they favor comfort, while others with average smarts accomplish great things because they dared to try.

🧩 Connect the Dots

All these realizations pointed to a single, powerful insight for me: courage is just as important – if not more important – than intelligence or talent in making the most of our time. We often assume success comes down to having more resources, more time, or being exceptionally smart.

But what if the real bottleneck is bravery? Think about it – you can be brilliant and have all the time in the world, but if you never muster the courage to take that chance or pursue that idea, nothing happens. Meanwhile, someone else with half your knowledge but twice your daring might achieve your dream, simply because they tried while you held back.

This reframes the whole concept of “not having enough time.” How often do we complain we don’t have time to write that book, start that business, learn that skill? Yet whenever I said I “didn’t have time,” it was usually code for “I’m afraid to start.”

I had the hours, but I filled them with safe, familiar tasks. In hindsight, it wasn’t a lack of hours in the day – it was a lack of heart to use those hours boldly. Time was never the missing ingredient; courage was.

And here’s the kicker: time keeps flowing whether we act or not. Days turn into years, and eventually we confront the reality of dreams deferred.

They look back and see how many dreams went unfulfilled because of choices they didn’t make. In other words, fear is a thief of time. Every opportunity we shrink from is time lost that we can’t get back.

🧾 Closing Thoughts

Choosing courage isn’t a one-size-fits-all remedy, nor is it always easy. We all have different life circumstances. For some, financial or family obligations genuinely limit how much risk you can take – courage isn’t about being reckless or ignoring real responsibilities. And certainly, being smart and working hard still matter!

The point is that all the knowledge and time in the world won’t help if we let fear run the show.

We have to use whatever privilege or resources we do have to actually go after the things we care about. In my case, I recognize that I’m fortunate enough to even have opportunities to pursue my interests on the side. Not everyone gets that chance. So it feels even more important that I don’t squander it by sitting on the sidelines.

I also know that building courage is an ongoing practice. I’ll likely stumble and retreat back to my comfort zone now and then – and that’s okay. The goal isn’t to become fearless overnight (if ever), but to not let fear consistently make my choices for me. When I catch myself procrastinating on something important, I’ll try to gently but firmly push myself forward, remembering that time is ticking.

In the end, time and courage are two sides of the same coin when it comes to a fulfilling life: time gives us the canvas, but courage is the paint. With each courageous act, we fill that canvas with something worthwhile.

Until next time, remember: every second counts. Let’s make the next ones count together.

Cheers,
Joesurfio