Over the weekend, I had a tweet go viral. As of this writing, it reached upwards of 446K people. The notifications wouldn’t stop. I was getting dopamine hit after dopamine hit and it lasted for three days! It was pretty exciting to say the least.
As soon as I realized what was happening, however, excitement wasn’t the only feeling that emerged. I also became incredibly self-conscious. I started hyper examining my profile page, past tweets, and analytics. And most notably, I started getting anxious and second-guessing myself as I thought about what to do next.
These are the cautionary side-effects that come with success: it inflates the ego; manipulates expectations, desire, self-image; and causes a person to move from their work to their head. And being “in your head” is not a good place to be when producing work is the game. Producing work best happens when you’re out of your head—when you’re in your zone.
In order to get back on track I had to deliberately get myself away from the analytics. I had to forget about the outcome(s) and focus back on the craft. Just like it takes mindful effort to recycle failure, so too does it take mindful effort to rebound from successes. When in doubt, just remember, regardless of the outcome—viral or bust—always return to your work. And you’ll always be right.