Bulletproof Success

How to Be Successful in Everything You Do

Photo by Clark Tibbs on Unsplash

Note from Mack: Happy Tuesday! This is a guest post from my friend

Frey

! Please follow Frey and check out her Substack, the Average Joe’s Guide to Substack! Frey shares tips and advice on how to grow your Substack, and improve your life! I appreciate her sharing her knowledge with us!

When something feels impossible to achieve, the easiest reaction is usually one of two things: work harder or give up entirely. You tell yourself, “Maybe it’s just not for me.”

It’s happened to me more times than I can count.

But when I finally decided to write on Substack, I made a quiet promise to myself: this time, it won’t happen again.

Right after I hit publish for the first time, I decided on one thing. I’m going to write every day for the next 3 months.

That’s it. Just write.

No goals about views. No subscriber targets. No expectations of virality. If I hit publish, I win.

Even if no one read it, even if it was a mess, just writing and posting meant I had already succeeded. Because I showed up. I edited. I published. I followed through.

And some days? My posts had… 4 views.

Probably just 4 of my 6 real-life friends here on Substack.

But I ignored the rest. No metrics, no stats, no spirals. Because I wasn’t here to chase numbers.

I was here to build something quiet but consistent.

I kept going. I kept showing up. And I was really winning.

Not in the flashy way. Not in the algorithm way.

In my way.

Once I hit that daily writing streak and was already successful, I asked myself: okay, what’s next?

Now that I’m successful, I need to be more successful. So the next question became: what’s my new measure of success?

This time, it still wasn’t views. It wasn’t subs. And it wasn’t even money.

This time, success was again something more personal. I started asking: am I improving? Am I showing up with intention? Am I building trust with myself?

That was my scoreboard. And honestly? That changed everything.

You know those moments where you start questioning the whole thing? “Maybe this isn’t for me.” “Why am I even doing this?” “I’m not seeing any results.” I didn’t ask myself those questions, not because I was immune to doubt, but because I recognized that voice.

It’s the same voice that convinces people to walk away right before things start to shift.

And those voices didn’t matter to me. Because according to my rules, I was successful. My definition was flexible and it included failure in between its spaces. It was more realistic.

Sure, I believed in myself, probably in a not-so-rational way, and I probably looked silly to other people at the time.

But it didn’t matter. Because those were essential mindsets for survival: accepting reality and going with it.

You can’t dream of having a thousand subs without being a good writer first. So your first goal for success shouldn’t be the numbers as well, instead, it naturally should be becoming a good writer.

My “silly” meter of success gave me laser focus on what my goal should be until I could move into another stage and set a new one.

There are no shortcuts. So why should we define our success by the later stages already?

This is a big part of my Success here on Substack. I get to control my own definition.

By the time I started writing on Substack, I had already internalized this mindset from other areas of my life.

Like the gym. I’ve always been consistent with workouts, and for a long time, people didn’t get it.

They’d joke around, ask why I was so serious about it. They’d show up once or twice, then disappear for weeks.

Some even teased me. “You don’t look that different yet.” But that was never the point.

Every session was already a success. Just getting myself to show up, to move, to honor the routine, that was enough.

I felt more energized. I felt stronger. I felt better. And for me, that’s already crazy success.

Most people think success is this giant trophy. Some big, shiny, immovable thing you win once you achieve something great.

But the truth? Success is super arbitrary.

Photo by Alex Jones on Unsplash

You get to define it. It’s highly malleable. It changes per person. So no one else can define your success but you. And it changes over time as well.

It’s not static. It’s not one-size-fits-all. And when you realize that, something shifts.

You stop chasing someone else’s version. You start collecting your own wins.

Writing every day gave me more than I expected.

I became a better writer. I built discipline. I gained confidence.

I proved I could follow through, even when no one was watching, even when it wasn’t fun, even when it felt like no one cared.

And maybe most importantly, I stopped flinching at the boring parts.

The long drafts. The messy edits. The behind-the-scenes stuff. The slow days.

It’s not just about writing. It’s the same if you’re starting a business, trying to get fit, learning a skill, or studying something that feels impossibly far away.

If you measure your success only by what others can see, you’ll always feel behind.

But if you track your internal progress, you’ll always move forward.

Because real success isn’t about what you get. It’s about who you become while you’re still not getting it.

So if you’re in the quiet season, the no one’s watching season, the invisible season, the “Why am I even doing this?” season, keep going.

You’re not failing. You’re becoming.

Success isn’t a finish line in the distance. It’s a way of seeing yourself in the present.

Even in the middle of the work. Even when the results haven’t shown up yet.

If you’re writing and no one’s reading, if you’re working and no one’s noticing, if you’re showing up and it still feels invisible, please hear this:

You are not behind. You are not failing. You are already on your way.

You will only become more successful.

-Frey