Here’s what 3 years of consistent weekly practice taught me about validation
Two weeks ago, I scrolled back through 157 consecutive weeks of this newsletter.
This meant facing my own doubts, my own impatience, my own desire to quit.
I went as far back to the initial post where I asked a few people on my subscriber list for permission to send a weekly newsletter.
The first of those posts was sent out on January 27, 2023. It was about rewiring your brain. The next one was about love. Then spirit. Dopamine.
The topics were all over the place, the quality was rough, but I shipped every single week.
Looking at all that I’d written in the last 3 years, I realized something: I’ve never been this consistent at anything since when I was in school.
That consistency revealed an insight I hadn’t expected – all this time, I was making a choice I didn’t even know I was making.
It was actually something I wrote about in my first post.
It’s worth making a choice to convince yourself instead of others.
Convincing others is a waste of time if you haven’t convinced yourself first.
Choose to convince yourself.
Just before I started my 3-year writing journey. I had been on twitter, spending a lot of my time and energy learning about NFTs.
I spent months trying to convince people about blockchain’s value in 2022. I even launched my first NFT project in September of that year. A few months later, when the SBF scandal hit, they said it was all a scam.
I was exhausted.
That’s when I realized I was trying to convince others instead of convincing myself.
It’s easier to spend your time convincing others, because when you’re alone with yourself, it’s really hard to lie to yourself.
But with others, you can talk it up, hide doubts behind good arguments, and claim to know something “because of your background.” Even if you don’t know, you can choose to use the B.S. mantra of “fake it until you make it” with the hopes that something will eventually come out of it.
You end up spending your energy on the wrong thing. Trying to get other people to validate your conviction, which you never built in the first place.
This is where I got stuck: thinking it should all be perfect before showing the world. The thinking makes “common sense” – no failed ventures visible, the performance stays intact.
But here’s what 157 weeks taught me: every newsletter I shipped built internal conviction, not because anyone was watching, but because the page doesn’t let you lie to yourself about whether you showed up. I spent more time validating my own taste (my voice, my topics, my follow-through) and less time performing for certain people.
I’m still building that belief, making it less about whether others believe in me.
After the NFT crash, I stopped evangelizing and started building quietly—writing weekly, sharing stories, asking myself: Can I make this work for me first? That’s when I crowdfunded my 4th book. Not because I’d perfected the pitch, but because I’d convinced myself it was worth following through.
Every productivity guru says: “Build your audience first, then create.”
I zigged. I wrote for 3 years to convince myself I’m a consistent writer. The audience followed the conviction, not the other way around
Here’s how you start building that conviction:
Start a 2-week self-directed documentary project
Here’s what I’m learning on the practice ground:
One way to build conviction in yourself is to start a project you’re interested in and document it.
The personal documentation practice is how I started off with mine.
Daily documentation of what genuinely interests me, shared weekly.
Documentation builds self-conviction because it’s impossible to lie to yourself in writing. Every week I publish is a check: Did I actually do what I said mattered? Did I learn what I claimed to explore? The page doesn’t let you fake it.
I developed a note-taking habit on my phone (where I’m currently writing this newsletter). I read and observe things that I am curious about – economic empowerment, creativity, psychology, philosophy, and technology, and took notes. Then I share it weekly.
As a documentarian, you refine your interest and develop your taste. (I’m currently testing how AI fits into this practice, but that’s another newsletter.)
My self-directed documentary provides a sandbox to explore, show proof, and build confidence.
It starts with a simple choice.
Pick one topic you’re genuinely curious about for your documentary.
Each day for two weeks, capture one 2-3 sentence observation (what you noticed, why it mattered to you). Don’t edit, just observe. Why 14 days? Long enough to build a habit signal, short enough to avoid the perfectionism trap. You’re testing for self-conviction, not building a content empire.
On day 14, review your observations and write:
What did I learn about myself?
What patterns do I see?
What’s my actual taste here?
Do I continue this? Modify it? Stop it?
A short sprint with systematic documentation might just be the catalyst to start a new journey.
Closing Reflection
What’s one thing you need to convince yourself of before convincing anyone else?
Like my first newsletter predicted – documenting weekly rewired how I think. I care less about people’s perception of who I am or what I do. I now direct more of that energy into building proof and self-confidence.
This makes me wonder how else I can rewire my brain by making another choice to do something consistently.
Yours truly,
Nifemi
P.S. If you read this far, on this 3-year anniversary, do me one huge favor, hit reply and say ‘hi.’
