Remember leg day
I’ve been thinking about this for a little while now. I wasn’t planning to write this. But something in me needed to put these thoughts somewhere. I’ve started and deleted this more than once. I don’t feel confident in what I’m doing. Most of the time, I feel like I’m just guessing. Still, I keep showing up.
There’s a battle I’ve been feeling lately. It’s not really about the numbers, but it is. I know the goal isn’t to gain followers. It’s to reach hearts. I keep telling myself that. But when the numbers are low, it’s hard not to wonder if anyone’s even listening. I don’t know how many people are reading this, but if you are, I hope something in it meets you where you are. And this has been sitting with me long enough that I knew I needed to write it.
Over the last ten years, I have had different blogs. I had kept each blog for a couple of years, but then I deleted them because I felt disheartened due to a lack of subscribers and engagement from my audience. One of those blogs was called Let Go and Let God during my lowest seasons; it meant a lot to me at the time. I have had my current blog for twelve months. The newsletter I write has been out for only two months. Currently, I have three subscribers. One is my other email address, my wife, and someone I met through Threads who has been a great source of support and encouragement from the beginning. I have been told that my writing is good, but when I check the numbers, it doesn’t seem to reflect that.
I read other newsletters, and they have hundreds, sometimes thousands, of subscribers. I often wonder what I am doing wrong. My personality is from zero to a thousand without thinking, then I start feeling inadequate because what I have to say isn’t important. It’s like the momentum crashes into doubt. I was sharing with my wife the other day how disheartened I was feeling. Because she knows me so well, she said you need to remember leg days.
If you don’t know what that is referring to, it's a gym statement. People who do weights forget leg days. They focus all their time on the upper body and don’t do the legs. As I write this, a memory comes to mind, seeing a man at the gym with a massive upper body and thin, almost forgotten legs. His body looked strong until you saw the imbalance. For some reason, people don’t like leg days. Leg day isn’t most people’s favourite. It takes more out of you than you expect. Your legs carry your whole body, so when you train them, everything feels it. The next day, even sitting down can hurt. Some skip it because the results aren’t as evident as upper-body workouts.
That’s what my wife was getting at. She was reminding me that if I want to reach a thousand, I need to do the leg days. It’s not that I don’t want to do leg days, it’s because I doubt myself. I have been doubting myself for years when it comes to writing, and it is not natural to me. As I wrote earlier, when you do leg days, everything hurts, and it’s harder to do any other training because your legs are your support for everything else. I'm learning that before I see the results, I need to keep showing up on the leg days and trust God that I’ll see results.
But leg day builds strength in the areas that support you. It’s a reminder that not all growth is seen, and the things that carry the most weight often don’t get noticed. And maybe this is one of those seasons where the strength is building quietly underneath.
I used to be very fit. I'd run ten kilometres, do a cardio program, and the high-intensity training (HIT). It was the best I had felt for years. There were times when I saw no results, but over time, I suddenly realised how fit I had become. The hard work going from zero to a thousand paid off. I keep reminding myself of Galatians 6:9.
“So, let’s not get tired of doing what is good. At just the right time, we will reap a harvest of blessings if we don’t give up.”
Maybe you’re in your version of leg day right now. If so, I hope you know you’re not the only one showing up when it’s hard. Sometimes that’s when the real strength is being built.
