Hey there,

Before we dive into today's piece, two housekeeping notes:

• This newsletter will take on a different format soon. It'll contain less polish and more process. (I suppose you'll understand why by the end of this email.)
• I updated my website. You can check it out here.

What both of these changes have in common (and really, what all the changes I've ever made to my writing platform share) is that they point toward two ideals: freedom and simplicity.
Freedom, as in: I can express myself creatively without holding back.
Simplicity, as in: I can enact that freedom without needing to lift unnecessarily heavy weights.

With that in mind, here's to more effortless, creative, and light-hearted times.

Half-ass more things

I know this might sound absurd, but recently, I've come to a conclusion that, some years ago, I wouldn't have entertained in the slightest: I should half-ass more things. And weirdly enough, it's Matthew McConaughey's fault.

I'll explain.

It all began two years ago when I listened to the audiobook of McConaughey's Greenlights, narrated by the man himself. I immediately fell for McConaughey's smooth Texan cowboy voice, and I found his tone surprisingly relatable and down-to-earth.

One story, in particular, has stuck with me.

The story goes like this. When McConaughey was in his 20s, he was cruising down a well-paved career path that would make his family proud: He was about to graduate, attend law school, and become a defense attorney.

But then, suddenly, he felt a divine impulse that would yank his life in the opposite direction. He would go to film school. He would become an actor.

It was a risky move. For most people, this would be the type of risk that comes with, say, sailing across a stormy sea. But for McConaughey, who grew up in a rugged, rural family, this was more like launching a canoe down a waterfall. Without a lifejacket. That is to say, McConaughey didn't just put his career at stake but also the valued relationship with his family.

"My dad," McConaughey says, "taught us to do a job well and climb the 9-to-5 company ladder. I had been groomed to be the family's lawyer. We'd been a blue-collar family. Film school? Oh, shit..."

So when, one night, McConaughey called his dad to share the news, you could've sliced the tension with clipped nails.

"I wanna share something with you," McConaughey said.

"What's that?" his dad said.

"Well, I don't wanna go to law school anymore. I wanna go to film school."

An unreasonably long silence ensued. Then, a calm voice.

"Is that what you wanna do?"

"Yessir, Dad. It is."

Another silence.

"Well," his dad said, "don't half-ass it."

Legend has it that, ever since that day, Matthew McConaughey never half-assed a single second in the film business. For him, it was the best reaction he could've possibly received.

***

Back when I listened to that story, the message stuck with me because I was in a similar situation as McConaughey Junior: I had just quit my four-year engineering career and decided to pursue a career in writing. Like McConaughey, I had been sitting in a flimsy canoe, wobbling down the frothy currents of an uncertain future. And so, I'd been desperately looking for anything I could hold onto—anything that could guide me to safe waters.

Sure enough, I found something.

Don't half-ass it. That line was an unreasonably potent drug for my overambitious ego. I injected that piece of advice into my veins and let it flow into my bloodstream until it became second nature. Don't half-ass this sentence, I would tell myself. Don't half-ass that pitch. Don't half-ass anything. How you do one thing is how you do everything.

I suppose it served me well. Over the past years, I've often received heartwarming comments like "This was so well-written" or "I can really tell how much effort you put into this article." To be sure, I appreciate these kind words. They feel like rays of sunlight on a cold winter morning. But this type of approval has also reinforced my zero-half-ass strategy, molding it into something rigid, something heavy.

In my early days of writing, I could still shake words out of my sleeve and be satisfied with how they looked on the page. But somewhere along the way, I adopted the belief that I could only be satisfied with my work if I had suffered for it. This work ethic would've made Papa McConaughey proud, I'm sure. And in an always-busy society, it's really a badge of honor to sacrifice your well-being at the altar of hard work. It's so easy to get the impression that if we aren't exhausted at the end of the day, we simply haven't been doing enough.

The flip side of all this is often hidden from bystanders. When I look underneath my strict work ethic, I find not perfection but paralysis. What I see are thousands of hours spent overthinking a single headline, hundreds of over-doctored drafts that landed in the bin, and countless mornings on which I lost my will to write because of a poorly performing article.

The line between ambition and sanity is so thin that you can cut your feet bloody when walking it.

***

Ostensibly, "don't half-ass it" was exactly what Matthew McConaughey needed to hear back then. It propelled him forward. I suppose some people just need that slap on the butt to start running after their dreams like a caffeinated racing horse. And for the longest time, I thought I was one of those people.

It seemed quite logical to me. McConaughey became successful because he didn't half-ass his acting career. Therefore, I can become successful if I don't half-ass my writing career.

That was my A1 recipe.

And yet, when I first recognized the obvious flaw in that chain of assumptions, it hit me like a brick in the face: I'm not Matthew McConaughey. I don't even aspire to be like him. And anyway, do I even want to become wildly successful? If anything, that would only make me more insecure and more finicky because I would come to see my success as a direct outcome of my dictatorial work ethic.

It took me embarrassingly long to learn that "don't half-ass it" had been tattoed on my synapses all along. I've felt like I wasn't enough for as long as I can count to ten. Trying to outperform everything and everyone is my default mode. I don't need a bulky coach who spit-screams at my face to "Work! Harder!" My inner critic is already taking care of that. Thank you very much.

Instead, I need to adopt a mindset directly opposed to one I'd carefully cultivated all those years.

I need to half-ass more things.

***

There's just one problem when, like me, you're a full-fledged full-asser trying to become a half-baked half-asser. That problem—very ironically— is that half-assing itself turns into this whole new self-improvement project. It's that half-assing suddenly becomes another ambition. In other words, I don't just want to half-ass the stuff I create; I want to successfully half-ass the stuff I create.

Before I started writing this article, I set myself an intention: I wanted to half-ass it. I gave myself permission. No overthinking. No nitpicking. No endless editing. Because if that's not the point I'm trying to convey—well, what is?

And yet, here I go again. We're a thousand words in, and I've already reworked the McConaughey story more than five times (probably making it worse in the process), even though McConaughey told the story perfectly well in his memoir.

So, for me, it eventually boiled down to a pivotal question: What would it mean to half-ass more things without the extra layer of ambition and hard work?

For a start, I think a valuable insight is that I can half-ass the process of half-assing. In other words, I can acknowledge that shifting down a gear will be naturally difficult. And that It'll take time.

Always giving 200% has been my default setting for the past years. Slowing down will take more than flicking a switch. To pretend I can move the needle from 200% to 100% overnight is delusional. That's a relapse into full-assing. But merely trying to lift the foot from the gas pedal and letting the needle fall back ever so slightly—195%, maybe 190%—that's the kind of half-asser I aspire to be.

***

Recently, I've been trying to half-ass more things by taking baby steps. I occasionally trip as I'm still used to running in long strides, but maybe that's not so bad.

For instance, I recently wrote an article in which I talked about whales and how it feels unconventional that they're mammals, even though they live underwater, have fins, and inhabit humongous bodies. Along these lines, I incidentally remarked that humans and whales share the same species.

Which was wrong.

As several readers kindly pointed out to me, we share the same class with whales, not the same species.

Had this happened to me some months ago, my reaction would've been frantic. I would've panicked and instantly corrected the mistake. And sure enough, at that moment, I could sense my inner critic rushing on the streets, sandwiching his face with his hands, screaming, Oh God, we made a mistake! Code Red! Our writing career is over!

I was mulling over this kerfuffle over morning coffee when an unexpected thought bubbled to my mind's surface: So what? I made a mistake, yes. But... so what? Sure, I might look a bit silly, but then again, who cares? If anything, the readers who pointed out the mistake felt smart when they left those comments. On a more narcissistic side, those comments signaled the algorithm that my article was worth engaging with, thus generating more attention.

All of which is to say that one of the healthiest milestones on the path to half-assery might be the very nightmare of an overambitious person: the willingness to look foolish.

I learned that from someone who knows it best.

***

One of my favorite YouTubers, Matt D'Avella, is going through a similar transformation. Matt stopped posting videos on his main channel four months ago and said he'd felt burnt out long before that.

Lately, though, he has rekindled his creativity: he has sent out short and sweet newsletters and created a bonus channel where he simply documents and talks through the things on his mind and what he's been working on.

"I set the bar so fucking high for every video over there," Matt says, "that I just wanted an outlet to be able to start creating again."

This perspective shift— seeing overambition from a spectator's viewpoint—lifted a heavy cross from my back. On reflection, I enjoyed Matt's "casual" videos no less than the polished videos on his main channel. Sometimes, they felt too polished for my taste. Ultimately, the effort we put into our work rarely relates to how it's received. A few minutes of play can resonate with others just as strongly as years of hustle.

As Matt says in one of his newsletters:

Less polish, more process. That, I think, is the golden formula to master the art of half-assing.

***

When I picture myself in the shoes of the young Matthew McConaughey, telling his dad he's about to go to film school, I think that "don't half-ass it" would've been among the worst reactions I could've received. It would've led me down a road of relentless ambition and brute force. And if an obstacle were to appear, it would be my fault. It would mean I didn't work hard enough.

So, in McConaughey's stead, I would've much rather received an irritating yet eventually fruitful string of words. Something along the lines of:

"If that's what you want, go for it. Be persistent. Be dedicated. But when you notice your ambition getting in the way of your fulfillment, slow down, do yourself a favor, and half-ass more things."

Until next time,

Stephan

Thanks for reading! To respond, just hit reply. If my overambition allows it, I'll continue to use this newsletter as a playground to try out new things and, well, to play. So, any thoughts you have are more than appreciated. If you know someone who could enjoy this email, just forward it. Or share this link: [ARCHIVE URL GOES HERE].