Hey friends,
Quick thing before we start – the Android version of VoicePal, our AI ghostwriting app that we’ve been building for 9+ months, has just launched. If you’re one of the many people who use Android, and you need/want to do a lot of writing in your work or your life, you might like to give VoicePal a try. It’s essentially a “Ghostwriter in your Pocket” – ie: you hit record and say whatever’s on your mind, it asks you sensible follow-up questions, and it turns what you’ve said into a first draft that sounds like you. It’s totally transformed my own approach to writing and creating, and it’s also helped our 2,000+ paying users on iOS (and plenty of our 60k+ free users too).
Anywayyyyy, I’ve just gotten back to Hong Kong from an incredible, life-changing, 7-day off-the-grid retreat hosted by Joe Hudson and the Art of Accomplishment team in California. I’m still in the process of distilling all the learnings, many of which are pretty hard to explain. But there’s one concept that stuck with me, which I wanted to share with you today, and it’s called pendulation.
The word itself comes from the world of trauma therapy, but it’s a useful concept outside of that too. It describes that natural back-and-forth movement—like a pendulum—when we’re learning or integrating something new into our lives. Here’s a story that Joe and Tara, the retreat facilitators, told us to illustrate this:
Imagine a baby learning to walk. You wouldn’t expect that baby to just get up one day and walk perfectly. No, the baby first crawls, and then when it starts trying to walk, it gets up, stumbles, and falls. But after a while, it takes a few steps and falls again. And when it falls, it doesn’t think, “Oh no, I failed at walking. I’ll never be able to walk again!” It hasn’t yet learned that particular thought pattern 😉 Instead, it just tries again. It gets up, it takes a few steps, it stumbles, it falls again. Eventually, after enough of this back-and-forth process—this pendulation—the baby learns to walk with confidence.
Joe and Tara used this story to explain how we can approach integrating new lessons into our lives. We shouldn’t expect to just nail it on the first try. Instead, pendulation is part of the process—there are going to be moments where we feel like we’ve got it, and others where it feels like we’ve completely lost it. And that’s okay.
This got me thinking about how much this concept applies to so many areas of life.
Take YouTube, for example. When people join my Part-Time YouTuber Academy, they’re super excited in the first few weeks, making videos and learning all the things. But then life happens. Maybe they stop uploading for a few weeks, or even months. The people who succeed, though, are the ones who get back up. They recognise that the gap in consistency isn’t a sign of failure—it’s just pendulation. They start making videos again, and over time, with enough back-and-forth, it becomes second nature.
I’ve been experiencing this with my own health journey too. Since turning 30, I’ve been taking my health more seriously. But it’s not been smooth sailing. There are times when I’m super consistent with the gym and eating well, and other times when I’m traveling or just out of routine, and everything falls off. The key I’ve learned is to not beat myself up when I’m off-track. That’s just pendulation at work. You pick yourself up, you get back to it, and over time, you improve.
This concept has also been a massive mindset shift for me when it comes to my productivity system. Earlier this year, I was super consistent with my weekly reviews and morning manifestos, but then life got in the way—getting married, going to Burning Man—and I slipped. Tbh, I’ve been inconsistent with my productivity systems for years. I get excited about new tools like Building a Second Brain or reading Getting Things Done, and I’ll stay organised for a while. But then the pendulum swings back, and I find myself in chaos again. And that’s okay.
What’s been liberating for me is realising that even though I’ve gone through these cycles, I’ve been slowly moving forwards over time. It’s 3 step forwards in periods of consistency, and then 2 steps back when life falls into chaos. Rinse and repeat. But over time, I’m still moving in the direction I want to be. And despite having (plenty of) these periods of inconsistency with my own productivity habits, I’ve still somehow ended up as a “productivity expert” and convinced a publisher into letting me write a book about it that’s been translated into 30+ languages 😂
If you look at business growth, it’s the same story. With every business, there are periods of rapid growth, and then plateaus, or even declines. This expanding and contracting is natural—it’s like the beating of a heart. A heart that only contracts or only expands can’t beat. It’s the movement between the two that keeps things alive.
So, if you’ve been hard on yourself for not being consistent with your goals—whether it’s creating content, sticking to your health routine, or staying on top of your to-do list—give yourself some grace. Recognise that pendulation is part of the process. As long as you keep getting back up, you’ll keep moving forward.
At the end of the day, consistency is great, but no one’s going to care how perfectly you stuck to your habits. What really matters is whether you enjoyed the journey and connected with the people who matter to you along the way.
Have a great week!
Ali xx
