[One Thousand Characters a Day] It's Okay to Start Now＜3＞- Find the Reason to Do It

Editor's NoteThe Asia Economy newsletter "Harumanbo Harucheonja" offers this week's transcription content from the book It's Okay to Start Now by Jeong Hoe-il, CEO of Yeongnahan (English Training! I Do It in Korea!). Despite numerous hardships, Jeong's autobiographical story of boldly pursuing his dreams will inspire passion in many who continue to challenge themselves toward their goals today. Word count: 765 characters.

Many ask, "How do you keep going when it’s tough until you reach your goal?" This question implies, "I find it hard to be consistent; what should I do?" Here is an answer to that.

World-renowned futurist Ray Kurzweil predicted in his book The Singularity Is Near that "superintelligent AI surpassing human intelligence will soon emerge." There’s no time to idly try this and that. I also spent a long time finding my calling ("doing what I love, do well, and help others"). At first, I struggled because I didn’t know what I was good at or interested in. No matter how much I thought, I couldn’t figure out what I liked or wanted to do consistently. But now, I find various fields like English, reading, finance, philanthropy, neuroscience, business, bootstrapping startups, and networking all enjoyable, and I can easily engage in conversations about them with anyone.

If my past self were to answer the initial question, "How do you persist?" I would have said, "Find the reason why you must do it."

Goals like driving a Ferrari or buying an apartment in Gangnam can be achieved by earning money. Goals started from recognition or possession desires are likely to make you think, "Why am I even doing this?" when obstacles arise, increasing the chance of quitting. Find a desperate reason why you must accomplish it.

But now I answer differently. Upon reflection, I realized most of us don’t know how to learn properly. Even if we find a desperate reason, not knowing how to learn means we don’t know how to improve, so our skills don’t grow, and eventually, we stop liking it.

In other words, if you can learn "how to get good at something," you will improve quickly, and the likelihood of liking what you do will increase. Since you perform well and get results, you won’t need to think about persistence; you will just keep going. Finding how to do something well leads to better results and enables you to persist.

- Jeong Hoe-il, It's Okay to Start Now, Chai Garden, 16,000 KRW