Permission for Obsession
Don't let it die before it even begins
Four months ago, I published A New Home where I wrote about creating a website that finally felt like mine. Last week, I got it live. You can check it out here. More on this another time. For now, let’s jump into this week’s piece.
For years, I’ve pushed skills I’m interested in to the sidelines.
One such skill is design. I’ve always been fascinated by how complex ideas and brands can get someone to think differently or take action. In fact, I still am. But I’ve realized I’ve been in a silent battle against a voice in my head that’s whispered, *”I’m not a designer. What’s the point? What’s the end result?”
So I’d shelve it. Before even trying anything, part of me had already decided there was nothing worth trying for.
I’ve spent the better part of two decades believing I should center my attention on one specific thing from the minute I wake up to the minute I go to bed. That’s supposedly how you become “successful”. Anything that deviates attention from your career is a hobby. Nothing more. It can never be a real pursuit. Not without an obvious outcome to point to first.
Few weeks ago, I opened Claude Code without a specific project or deliverable in mind.
One of the things I ended up building was Proof — a simple app to log wins and moments worth remembering. The idea came from dozens of journal entries where I noted how at the end of a day, even though I got pretty much everything done, this strange feeling of _not doing enough_ worked its way in my mind.
I wanted a place where I could stash evidence against that feeling, and knowing no tool matched my exact problem, I built it myself.
Two weeks ago I had nothing more than a vague understanding of GitHub repos, API keys, frontend architecture, and backend logic. So as I was building, I naturally made mistakes. But soon enough, I noticed I was handling the same tasks that once took hours within a matter of minutes — learning by doing, breaking, building back up again through videos, books, documentation, and sheer repetition.
I couldn’t have predicted any of the new connections or lesson that emerged over the past two weeks had I not just jumped right in and allowed myself to be immersed.
I can see how my obsession (and now profession) with writing started the same way.
I published on Twitter for the first time with no real sense of what good writing looked like. Once again, I made every mistake I could, and to this day, feel like I’m only five percent into the craft in terms of where I actually want to be. But that five percent is ingrained into everything I do today, and it wouldn’t have been possible had I not given myself the permission to get out there and go after my obsession.
Derek Sivers described this exact notion perfectly. You can do pretty much anything you want to, but you just can’t do it all at once.
So whenever you find yourself thinking about the “end goal” of a skill or idea, take a step back and focus on the one thing you can’t stop thinking about right now.
Start there.
You’ll figure out the rest once you’re inside.
Talk soon,
Pranav
P.S. I’ve recently got back into design playing around in Figma. To all my designer friends, drop me a message, I’d love to learn from you!