Anyone who knows me well will be shocked at the content of this episode. Why? Because I’m not a big sports fan. However, I do live in St. Louis, and people here LOVE the St. Louis Cardinals baseball team. So, it’s impossible not to get at least a little sucked into baseball mania at times.

Today, I want to use an analogy from the world of baseball to help us understand the value of putting in the work every day.

One of the greatest reputations you can acquire as a baseball player is that of a home run hitter. Everybody loves the player who can reliably step up to the plate, crack the bat, and send the baseball flying into the stands.

As writers, we all want “home runs.” We all want that NYT bestselling book, that popular blog, that well-paying gig writing for a client, or that large following on social media.

That’s why we often feel paralyzed when we create. We put all this pressure on ourselves to be perfect and create the greatest writing the world has ever seen.

Here’s the problem: great writing, and great creative work in general, is never created in a single moment of glory. It’s always preceded by a long series of small victories.

Do you know how long it took Michelangelo to sculpt his famous David statue from gleaming white marble? Over two years.

Every day, the 26-year old artist showed up and went chip-chip-chipping away at his masterpiece. It didn’t happen in a DAY. It happened over HUNDREDS OF DAYS.

Back to baseball. I was curious about how many major league baseball hits were singles, doubles, triples, and home runs. I came across a nifty graphic from a baseball stats website. It shows the distribution, by decade, of the four types of hits over the history of baseball.

The distribution of these hits has changed over the decades, but one fact is absolutely clear: Most hits are singles.

Games are won mostly by singles. Division titles are won mostly by singles. A World Series is won mostly by singles. Legacies are created mostly by singles.

In general terms, a “single” just means a small victory. I don’t know what it means for you personally, but here are some of my “singles” when it comes to writing:

• Writing and recording this podcast episode is a single.
• Writing and posting a blog post is a single.
• Answering a client’s email is a single.
• Working on my next book for an hour is a single.
• Getting on social media for fifteen or twenty minutes each and adding value by sharing posts and commenting is a single.
• Posting something interesting in my Daily Writer Community group is a single.
• Revising a client book chapter is a single.

You get the picture. A single is one little slice of work that isn’t going to move a mountain by itself. But the cumulative effect of a bunch of singles, over a long stretch of time, is MASSIVE. Huge wins are made up of tiny singles.

Daily Question: What single do you need to hit today?