Zero to marathon in one day
This is why you quit on Tuesday.
Have you ever met someone who keeps saying they’ll start eating better or exercising on Monday? Maybe that person is you.
They do start on Monday. They wake up determined. Eat clean. Maybe even sign up for a HIIT class.
And then what happens?
They give up that same week, if not that same day.
Why? Because they went from zero to marathon mode overnight. From eating a bag of chips on Sunday to eating grilled chicken and salad on Monday. From moving very little to going all in on intense workouts multiple times a week. It’s not sustainable. It’s a recipe for failure.
I love this analogy, and I use it a lot, because it’s basically everything I love: fitness, food, and building products.
The All-or-None Trap
If you had just started by cutting one junk food out, or adding some extra steps to your daily routine, you would have made progress without overwhelming yourself. But you thought it wasn’t enough. You wanted to go from 0 to 100 instantly.
And when 100 inevitably became impossible to sustain, all-or-none thinking kicked in. You quit.
The Same Mistake Happens in Product Development
You have a brilliant idea. You’re excited.
You imagine the perfect product. The shiny fix to a problem.
But on Day 0, you have nothing. No product, no user, no feedback, no clarity on what’s going to work.
And yet, you dive straight in. Weeks turn into months.
Two things usually happen here:
The horizon keeps moving away. Your vision is so far from where you are now that it starts to feel unreachable. Or the reality around your idea changes midway. But you’re already too deep to go back.
You build it all… and nobody comes. You ship your polished, all-in product, and realize people don’t use it like you imagined. Or don’t use it at all.
Start with What You Can Sustain
Whether it’s building habits or building products, the principle is the same:
Start with something small.
Learn from it.
If it works, build on top of it.
If it doesn’t, change direction.
When you don’t go all in from the start, it’s much easier to go back, adjust, and try again.
This is how sustainable habits, and successful products are built.
Not from zero to perfect.
But from zero to something.