Suppose you wanted to bake 100 apple pies.

But you don’t know anything about apple pie.

So you do some research and find a great apple pie recipe.

But you don’t know how to bake, not really.

So you try the apple pie recipe, but it doesn’t turn out that great.

You review your research. A ton of people have made a great apple pie with this recipe.

So you set about getting better at baking.

Finally, after some months, you make the recipe, and it turns out exactly like you were imagining.

Satisfied with pie #1, you set about reaching your goal of baking 100 apple pies.

About 37 pies in, you start to lose motivation. It feels like a slog. It’s just the same thing over and over.

Predictably, you start getting ads. “2-ingredient apple pie!”, “Apple pie in 3 steps!”, “How to make baking an apple pie fun!”

You try all 3. The simple 2-ingredient apple pie doesn’t turn out great. The easy 3-step apple pie winds up actually being 7 steps, but they just combined a few things to make it 3. The third one recommended putting on some fun music while you bake, which isn’t really the problem.

You go back to the recipe you know works, and you start to motivate yourself.

First, you adopt the grindset: “10 pies a day, every day, for the next week will get me there.”

But that lasts for about 2 days, but you burnout, and you feel even worse off than before.

So you try focusing on your goal: every morning, you write down your goal of having 100 pies.

While you feel clearer and know exactly what you want to accomplish, it doesn’t really help with the motivation.

Then, you realized you forgot to clarify your why: why is it so important to bake these apple pies? So you engage in days on end of journalling, until you realize the deep reasons behind your pursuit.

While you know the trauma and life experiences that led you to wanting an apple pie, it doesn’t really help with the motivation for baking 100 apple pies.

Feeling all alone, you ask yourself if there is anyone that can relate to you.

Then you realize, duh: bakers.

Professional bakers bake pies day in and day out.

So you try to adopt the identity of a baker.

But that doesn’t really work, because you don’t know how a baker actually looks at the world, or how they approach baking.

So finally, you go and talk to a professional baker.

And after a deep conversation, you learn the mindset that allows you to consistently act on the baking skills you already know, but on a regular basis.

You realize that it doesn’t require superhuman effort and iron willpower in order to bake 100 apple pies.

And it’s not in scheduling, or process, either.

It just requires understanding how bakers, the people that actually do what you want to do, day in and day out, actually think about and approach it.

Armed with this lens, you go back to your kitchen.

And within the next month, you finish.

Overall, it took you a year to make your 100 apple pies. But you got there.

If someone were to come up to you and ask,

“What’s the fastest way to bake 100 apple pies?”

Your answer might be something like, “adopt the attitude of a professional baker.”

And they might say “But there’s tons of recipes online! And ChatGPT can help me.”

To which you might respond, “Many people know what apple pie tastes like. Even fewer know the recipe to make that apple pie. Even fewer have the skills to make the recipe. And even fewer that have the skill to bake a great apple pie, actually bake apple pies on a regular basis. So the fastest way to bake 100 apple pies? Is to go learn how to think, see the world, and approach the craft of baking like a professional baker.”

The fastest way to bake 100 apple pies is to be a baker.