When you continue with personal development, there are nights when you suddenly think, "Maybe I should quit." Lily has had those nights several times. Downloads stop coming in, and on social media, someone else is releasing a new product, and you feel like you're the only one being left behind. I still remember that heaviness. But now, the fact that I'm writing this means I didn't quit and kept going. I didn't have any special talent, and I didn't hit it big with one product. I just didn't quit. That's all. I've only recently come to truly feel how such a simple thing, given time, gradually takes effect. Today, I want to write about the act of continuing. Not about technology, but about feelings. If this resonates even a little with people who are still creating while thinking "Why am I still doing this?", I'd be happy.
Three Weeks After Release, a Week with Zero Downloads
It was about a year and a bit after I started personal development.
I finally released an app I'd been working on for a long time. I'd narrowed down the features to what I thought was essential, refined the design many times, and brought it to a point where I thought, "Maybe people will actually use this." Or so I thought.
Right after release, the numbers moved a bit. But three weeks later, downloads had dropped to nearly zero.
At first, I kept telling myself, "It's still early days." But every morning when I opened the analytics and saw that flat graph, my heart broke a little more. The feeling that "maybe nobody needs what I make" would spread slowly through me as I lay in bed. I haven't forgotten the heaviness of that night.
I shouldn't compare, but I do anyway
And of course, the social media timeline is cruel at times like these.
Someone posts, "One month after release, we've hit 1,000 users!" Another person writes, "My personal project income now exceeds my company salary." I wish I could have genuinely thought "That's amazing," but back then, Lily couldn't quite manage that.
I kept thinking, "What's different between that person and me?" Is it a difference in sense? In understanding users? Or is it just that I'm not cut out for this?
Without finding an answer, I just kept comparing.
To be honest, Lily misunderstood the word "continuing" during that period.
I thought continuing meant staying highly motivated and creating something every single day. So when I had days with no motivation or weeks where I didn't create anything, I felt like "I'm not doing this right."
But looking back now, that was completely wrong.
Continuing meant "not quitting completely." You don't have to be perfect every day. It's okay to have periods where you only touch the project once a week. It's okay to have stretches where you're just thinking about it vaguely. All of that counts as "continuing," I now believe.
Back then, Lily didn't have that sense. I was just wearing myself down, blaming myself for "not doing it right."
One Person's "Thank You"
One night when I was seriously thinking about quitting, I received an email.
It came through the app's contact form, and it was a short message. Something like, "I was having a small bug that was bothering me, but this app solved it. Thank you for making it."
That's all. Just one email.
But the moment I read it, I thought, "Oh, someone's actually using this." There was a real person behind those download numbers. It's obvious, but when you're staring at numbers, you forget that there are actual people on the other side.
That night, I didn't quit the app. I even fixed the bug.
You might think, "Can one email really change your mind?" But I think that's how it works. The reasons to quit are lighter than you think. The reasons to continue are just as light.
I Made the Rules Smaller
There was one other thing I changed about how I approached it.
Before that, I'd set goals like "release an update every week" or "increase users by 10% each month." But while chasing those goals, the act of creating itself became painful.
At some point, I stopped setting goals. Instead, I decided to just "do one small thing a week."
Fix one bug. Change some wording. Just read user feedback. That's all. That's enough.
This turned out to be surprisingly sustainable. When the "amount you have to do" shrinks, motivation mysteriously becomes easier to find. Small movements seem to call forth the next small movement. It's a bit ironic—I'm actually continuing better now while doing things loosely than I was when I was trying to do everything perfectly.
When you're in the personal development community, you meet "naturally talented people." People who create quickly, release often, and get attention every time.
But when you look over a span of years, you notice that not all of these people keep going. Some burn out and disappear, or their updates stop.
Meanwhile, the people quietly continuing accumulate things steadily. Users, skills, and that sense of "I can create" within themselves.
It's not that people without talent can't continue—it's that talented people sometimes burn out faster. Continuing is on a different axis from talent.
Lily is still here not because of talent. Just because I didn't quit completely. I just barely held on every time I was about to give up.
And yet, years have passed without me noticing.
You Don't Have to Make "Continuing" Your Goal
I've been writing about how important it is to continue, but there's one honest thing I want to say.
I don't want you to make "continuing" your goal.
When you make continuing your goal, you end up blaming yourself for "not continuing." You feel guilty on days when you want to quit. That's backwards, I think.
Your goal should be to create what you want to create. To reach someone. That's all.
"Continuing" isn't a goal—it's a result. You have something you want to make, you can't give up on it, and before you know it, you've been continuing. That's the most natural form, I think.
If You're Thinking About Quitting, Try One Thing
If you're thinking "maybe I should quit" right now, I want you to try one thing.
Before you quit completely, try taking 1-2 weeks where you don't have to do anything.
Don't quit—just rest. That's all.
When you rest, you can start to see whether that feeling of "I want to quit" is real or not. While you're resting, if you find yourself thinking "Oh, I want to fix that," then you don't need to quit yet. And if that feeling doesn't come up at all, well, that's an honest answer too.
Either way, you don't have to decide in a rush.
Lily is writing this today because I wanted to speak to someone.
Even without talent, people who have continued can remain. And those who remain can answer someone else's "Why do I keep going?" That kind of chain quietly supports the personal development community, I think.
The fact that you're creating something today is already amazing enough, in Lily's opinion.
You don't have to quit yet. Let's continue together.
Lily (@bokuwalily) — Personal developer. Creating iOS apps and web services in tandem with AI.
