A Letter to Anyone Who’s Tired But Still Trying

Dear You,
Dear Me,
Dear anyone holding it together by the last thread of belief…

This is for the ones showing up without being seen.
For the ones holding quiet dreams that haven’t bloomed yet.
For the tired hands, the trembling hearts, the voices that still say “yes” when everything inside them wants to say “enough.”

Let me say this as gently and as honestly as I can:
This is the part that matters the most.

This is where grit is born.

The Science of Hanging On

Grit isn’t just a feeling, it’s a structure.
A neural path your brain lays down when you keep going.
A physical, chemical, emotional rebellion against the instinct to give up.

Angela Duckworth (psychologist and author of Grit) found that perseverance matters more than talent. Her TED Talk has 27 million views for a reason. It speaks to the part of us that knows: we don’t need to be gifted, we just need to be willing.

Inside your brain, the anterior cingulate cortex lights up when you push through a hard task. You’re literally training yourself to endure.

And in meditation research, scientists have found that even sitting still with intention changes the brain. More gray matter. More patience. More presence.
Staying soft in a sharp world is strength.

Like I wrote in Why the Mind Leaves the Body During Trauma, we often dissociate to survive. But returning…to the body, the dream, the work…that’s not weakness. That’s triumph.

The Quiet Math of Showing Up

Here’s what the numbers whisper:

• 81% of bloggers give up in the first 18 months.

• Most self-published books never sell more than 250 copies.

• But bloggers who publish consistently (just 2–4 times a week) see over 3.5x more growth.

• Writing down your goals makes you 42% more likely to reach them.

You might not feel like it, but every post is a brick in a cathedral. Every step is a step closer to whatever goal you have.
Every effort is compounding in ways you can’t see yet.

In Why Baking Can Be Therapeutic, I said healing doesn’t rise like lightning, it rises like dough. Slowly. Silently. Steadily.

The same is true for the life you’re building.

Stories of the Slow Burn

We all want fireworks. But real fire takes time.

• J.K. Rowling was rejected a dozen times.

• Bryan Cranston didn’t become iconic until he was middle-aged.

• Colonel Sanders? He was 62 before his chicken went global.

What they had wasn’t luck. It was grit.

In The Science of Nostalgia, I explored how memory rewrites the past. But the now (this messy, unsure middle) is what real stories are made of.

It’s okay if it hurts. That’s what growth feels like.

The Shape of Grit

Grit isn’t shiny.
It’s not cinematic.

It’s the quiet moment when you open your laptop instead of walking away.
It’s publishing when you’re not sure it’s good enough.
It’s whispering “keep going” into the void.

Grit is a routine. A ritual. A pulse.

And sometimes, all it takes is one tiny thing to remind you that your belief still exists, even if it’s flickering.

If You’re Tired Right Now

If you’ve checked your stats and felt defeated,
If you’ve posted and heard nothing back,
If you’ve written words that didn’t go viral, and you wonder if they matter,

They do.

Because someone else out there is tired too.
And maybe your voice is the only one soft enough for them to hear.

You don’t need to be loud. You don’t need to be perfect.

You just need to not disappear.

In The Wild Side of AI, I wrote about quiet sparks that become wildfires. This is yours.

Let it flicker. Let it hum. Just don’t blow it out.