A key part of my writing routine is gulping down an inappropriate amount of English tea (Yorkshire, to be specific).

I fill the largest cup I can find, tap away at the keyboard, and swing back to the kitchen as soon as the final sip passes my lips. The timing is perfect—around 30 minutes per brew. And I have been writing a lot over the past two months to finish my book, Magnetic Writing.

…Which means my mum’s lovely carpeted staircase is covered in tea spills.

(she is relieved I am leaving the UK to return to South America soon)

Now, I prefer tea in my mouth, not on the floor, so reducing spillage became a top priority. I noticed I only spill my drink when I focus intently on it. If I look elsewhere as I walk, the cup stays steady, which means I get more caffeine.

It reminds me of a lesson that goes deeper than tea (only just—tea is very important):

Focusing too much on the result costs you the result

I’ve noticed a similar effect with my writing and business. When I hyper-fixate on the outcome, I make all kinds of bad judgements.

For example, after I first went viral five years ago, I became obsessed with audience growth. My goal was to hit 100,000 followers. I studied the game relentlessly and mastered the basics of copywriting. Soon, I was attracting thousands of followers each week.

The rush was incredible: I thought I was killing it. But little did I know, I was killing my brand.

My wake up call happened on a moody Monday morning.

I just had my most viral post to date. It was a generic book recommendation list that read like it came straight from the airport bookshelf. As I scrolled my notifications, bathing in the glory of digital dopamine, I saw two well-respected writers tearing my post apart.

These were people I admired. People I aspired to be like.

They called my post braindead engagement farming. They said it was mindless and moronic. I tried to ignore the sting—telling myself they were just jealous and ‘didn’t understand the game’—but I couldn’t shake them from my mind. I went for a walk to cool off. When I returned, I decided to read my content through their eyes.

As I scrolled my timeline, I couldn’t believe what I found:

They were right.

So much of my content was generic crap—straight from the social media guru template pack. I was as interesting as a plank of wood, as special as home-brand cereal. With a sick feeling in my stomach, I realised that I was not a writer I would personally read.

How did I get here?

In retrospect it was obvious.

I was blinded by the likes.

I stopped setting targets for social media soon after, and focused on posting content that I was proud to share.

Sure, my growth slowed. But the quality of connection has been much better. From a client point of view, successful founders reached out to work with me. From a peer point of view, I have hopped on calls with many of the people I admire. And from a sanity point of view, I haven’t missed a daily post in 6 years now.

(It also helps me knowing that when I meet someone in person, I don’t have to apologise for my social media profile being an embarrassing representation of me.)

For similar reasons, I avoid revenue targets. Many entrepreneurs disagree with me here, but chasing income made me a dumb dentist. I worked hard for years in a career I did not enjoy because it paid well. The money became a prison—the more I made, the more fearful of change I became (the fear of wasting my life eventually overtook the fear of looking stupid within it).

But I am not suggesting you throw away all your targets. Only that you shift your focus to something more effective.

The beauty of aiming indirectly

I heard this tip from an interview between founders Eric Jorgenson and Naval Ravikant. They explained that the most elusive things—status, wealth, love—are “best pursued indirectly.”

Naval gave the example of wealth. When you chase it directly, you cannot compete with the person pursuing their genuine intellectual curiosity. When you only focus on your monthly income, you will struggle against a competitor obsessed with customer satisfaction.

One of the simplest fixes is to shift from outcome to (quality) output.

You want 1,000 followers, write 100 insightful posts. You want your first 6 figures, overdeliver for 10 clients. You want to be an author, write the best book you can (working on it!).

Output over outcome sounds simple, but I’ve found it one of the hardest challenges. The monkey-mind is not designed to play long-term games and make uncertain bets. It craves a scoreboard that fits snugly into social standing.

But that is precisely why it is worth it—few people can do it.

Aiming indirectly has no guarantee of success, but it tips the odds in your favour. You are no longer at the mercy of external validation, which usually takes much longer than you think (and the fulfilment is fleeting anyway). Instead, the metric of success is within your control. This is a powerful place to operate from—you have written the rules to your own game.

To bring this back to tea…

It takes a quiet confidence to focus on the walk and not the drink. But have faith that doing the best you can is all you need to do.

To your freedom,

Kieran