Underneath almost everything I've built is a debate between two kinds of people: the perfectionist, who refines every detail before letting anything out into the world, and the go-getter, who acts first and works the rest out on the way. When I look at the most successful people I know, there's no doubt which group they're in. For most of my life, I've been in the other one.
This first part is about what conviction actually changes: how you read obstacles, where your attention goes, and how you handle the discomfort that comes with doing anything worthwhile. Part two is about how conviction builds on itself, how to stop it turning into stubbornness, and what makes go-getters succeed.
- Conviction is aiming properly and then letting go. Spraying arrows misses, and so does never releasing.
- Be the driver, not the passenger. Same ability, same goal: the one who owns the destination treats obstacles as problems to solve.
- Want less, intend more. Focus your attention like a magnifying glass instead of spreading it across ten ambitions.
- Don't mistake motion for progress, and don't let perfecting become a place to hide from rejection.
- Get comfortable with discomfort. The cost of things worth doing comes first; the reward comes later.
01Three archers
The clearest way I can explain conviction is with a bow and arrow. The first archer fires as fast as he can, barely looking at the target, hoping that if he shoots enough, one will land. The second draws the string back and lines up the shot, then keeps lining it up, waiting for a moment when everything feels perfect. That moment never comes, so the arrow never leaves the bow. The third takes his time, aims with real intention, and lets go.
Both of the first two feel like effort, which is exactly why they're so easy to fall into. I've been both.
02Passenger or driver
What interests me most is that two people can have the same ability, the same resources and the same goal, and still end up in completely different places, simply because one approaches it with conviction and the other with hesitation.
Conviction changes how you behave before you've achieved anything. Believing something is possible isn't enough on its own. Conviction is believing in an outcome strongly enough that you start acting as if it's going to happen before you have any evidence that it will, and that change in behaviour is often what ends up bringing it about.
Picture two people who both want to build a successful business. The first thinks, "I'd love to build a successful business. Hopefully it works out." The second thinks, "I'm going to build a successful business. I don't know exactly how yet, but I'll work it out." Neither can guarantee success. What's different is how they read uncertainty. When the first person hits an obstacle, they're more likely to treat it as evidence that the idea might not work. The second treats the same obstacle as a problem to solve. One pulls back, while the other experiments, asks questions, changes approach and tries again. The second person isn't necessarily more capable. They're just far more likely to use the capability they've got.
It's the difference between a passenger and a driver. Both are heading for the same destination. The passenger knows where they want to end up, but their progress depends on someone else choosing the route and deciding when to stop and when to carry on. The driver doesn't know every turn in advance either. They'll hit roadworks, take a wrong turn or find a road closed. But because the destination is theirs, they find another way round.
That's the shift conviction makes. It turns you from someone who hopes an outcome happens into someone who takes responsibility for making it happen.
03Wanting isn't intending
Conviction also decides what you actually do with your time and attention, and that comes down to the difference between wanting something and intending to achieve it. Wanting is a preference. Intention is a commitment, and it starts to organise your behaviour around it.
You can want to be financially successful and still spend most of your free time on things that have nothing to do with it. There's no contradiction there. The desire is real, it just hasn't become the thing that runs your decisions. Once an intention is strong enough, you start filtering choices through it. You ask whether this moves you closer to what you're after, whether it's the best use of the next hour, what you're avoiding because it makes you uncomfortable, and what would make the most progress today. That doesn't mean every minute has to be productive. It means that more and more of what you do reflects your priorities, rather than whatever feels easiest in the moment.
Think about sunlight and a magnifying glass. Sunlight spreads its energy across a huge surface. A magnifying glass takes that same light and concentrates it onto one small point, and that point gets hot enough to burn. The glass doesn't create any extra sunlight. It just focuses what was already there.
Your time, attention, intelligence and energy work the same way. Someone with ten ambitions who spreads their attention randomly across all of them will make a little progress on each. Someone who deliberately concentrates on the one that matters most will make far more progress with exactly the same resources. Intention closes the gap between what you say is important to you and what you actually spend your life doing.
04Motion isn't progress
The hardest part of conviction is being honest with yourself, because it's very easy to feel productive while getting nowhere. James Clear draws a useful line in Atomic Habits between motion and action [1]. Motion is planning, preparing and staying busy. Action is the thing that actually produces a result.
Applications are the classic example. You spend an afternoon sending them out and ticking them off, and you feel productive. But you know you didn't tailor any of them, didn't message anyone at the firm or ask for a coffee chat, and didn't look beyond the online form. You've become one more applicant among thousands, and it feels like progress only because quick wins feel good. The gym works the same way. You can go four times a week and still stop every set with plenty left, at a weight that never asks anything of you. Conviction there means progressive overload, feeling every rep in the muscle you're working, and pushing close to the point where you can't do another. (Do it with good form and a spotter on heavy lifts, and if you're new to training, get advice from a qualified trainer.)
For a long time, my version of motion was perfecting. I love novelty, and I can lose hours building something new and then even longer polishing it: an online shop, a business tool, a website. I used to build beautiful dashboards in Notion, then abandon them a few days later for another one I didn't need. It all felt like progress. Deep down, I knew I was putting off the hardest part, which was delivery, actually putting the thing in front of people. Delivery means rejection. It means finding out that the demand you imagined might not be there. While something is unfinished, nobody can turn it down, so the endless polishing usually isn't about making it better. It's about keeping it safe from judgement.
There's a story in David Bayles and Ted Orland's Art & Fear about a ceramics teacher who split his class in two. One group would be graded on how many pots they made, the other on producing one perfect pot. The best pots all came from the quantity group, who learned from every pot they made while the other group theorised about perfection [2].
05Get comfortable with discomfort
I think this is the biggest difference between people who consistently make things happen and people who stay stuck wanting to. Go-getters have a different relationship with discomfort.
So many of the things worth doing cost you something straight away and only pay you back later. The cost is felt now, while the reward is somewhere down the line where you can't feel it yet. Most people decide based on the cost they can feel. Go-getters decide based on the reward they can't.
| What you do | What it costs you now | What it gives you later |
|---|---|---|
| Applying for a competitive role | Rejection and uncertainty | Opportunities you'd never otherwise get |
| Approaching a potential client | Awkwardness and a possible no | Revenue and experience |
| Learning a difficult skill | Frustration and slow progress | Real capability |
| Starting a project | The risk of failing | Ownership and the upside |
| Posting online | Feeling exposed and judged | A platform and an audience |
| Having a difficult conversation | Discomfort in the moment | A stronger relationship |
Selling taught me this more than anything. I sold an online coaching programme to strangers on calls, often for hundreds of pounds up front and sometimes close to £1,000, and the lesson that stuck was that if you genuinely believe in what you're offering, you don't push. Pushing signals that you need them more than they need you. You spark their curiosity, and when you say the price, you say it plainly, without a laugh or a smirk. That's conviction they can hear. Posting online is the same test for a lot of people now. You put your heart into something, it gets 300 views, and it feels embarrassing. But most people use social media to pose. Using it to share something real and build something is the better use, and once you're past that first barrier, you're not scared to talk in front of any screen again.
06Coming next
Conviction changes how you act, but the story doesn't end there. What you do starts to change what you believe, and that's where conviction either builds on itself or curdles into stubbornness. That's part two.
07How Ritual helps
I built Ritual because I kept turning planning into a hobby. It's deliberately simple: one page for today, where only what you actually commit to counts, and habits you simply tick off. There's nothing to tinker with and no dashboard to perfect. Every task and habit you finish moves your own share price, so the only way to make the line go up is to do the thing.
- One page for today: only what you commit to counts
- Tasks and habits that move your own share price
- A recovery day after a bad one, so a slip never becomes a spiral
Ritual is in beta. Join the waitlist and you'll hear first when places open.
08Questions
01What does it mean to do things with conviction?
Doing something with full intention and belief rather than half-heartedly: aiming properly, committing to it, and being honest with yourself about whether you really are.
02How do I stop being a perfectionist?
Get honest about what the polishing is protecting you from, which is usually feedback or rejection. Then put a rough version in front of real people as early as you can, learn from what they say, and improve it. Making many quick versions teaches you more than perfecting one.
03What's the difference between motion and action?
It's a distinction James Clear makes in Atomic Habits. Motion is planning, preparing and staying busy; action is the thing that actually produces a result. Fifty rushed applications are motion. Ten tailored ones, each followed up with a message to someone at the firm, are action.
04What's the difference between wanting and intending?
Wanting is a preference. Intention is a commitment that starts to organise your behaviour, so you filter your choices through it and spend more of your time on what actually moves you towards it.
- Taking action: motion vs action: James Clear; see also Atomic Habits (2018)
- Art & Fear, David Bayles and Ted Orland (1993)
Something here out of date, or a question the guide doesn't answer? Email hello@getritual.app. More in Guides.