Less than a week ago, I said this: “don’t ask if you’re “doing enough” (if you have to ask, you’re probably not 😉 )”.

Today, let’s talk about why.

So, occasionally, I’ll get an email from a seemingly very intelligent and diligent person, and he’ll go:

“Khatzumoto! What’s up, my dude! I’ve been working hard and learning my kanji but I’m still no good. What am I doing wrong?! Why can’t I read anything?! This is crazy?!”

And then I’ll ask this cat a specific, concrete question like “how long have you been doing this and how many kanji have you covered”. And he will, without skipping a beat say:

“2 weeks. About 50-100 kanji”.

And I will want to reach through the Internet, reach through all the tubes, and choke this person to death. Hahaha. For real, it’s happened more than once. Obviously, I’m just kidding about the violence; it’s more of a Picard facepalm reaction that it induces. Just me in front of the screen facepalming for about three hours.

Here’s the deal.

Never confuse what you’re doing with what you’ve done. Yes, you may be doing a lot, but that don’t mean you’ve done a lot. You could do a two hundred Surusu reps today, but if you’ve only one 500 in your entire Surusu life, then, yes, feel good about yourself but don’t expect magic.

Play the long game. Be a haretoise (or torhare) about this. Sprint, sleep, repeat. Emphasis on the “repeat”; you get ahead by doing the right thing more times than you can count, and one of the best ways to get such astronomical action-repetition counts is to make the actions habitual — it’s not a project, it’s a way of life; it is your life. Don’t sprint to little that you get nowhere; don’t sprint so hard that you hurt yourself and can’t even move any more.