While scrolling through twitter this afternoon, I somehow landed on https://www.patrickrhone.net/ today. While scrolling Rhone’s site, I saw this little gem from Seth Godin:
Even if no one but you reads it. The blog you write each day is the blog you need the most.
Source: The most important blog post | Seth’s Blog
After reading that, I thought this is perfect to jumpstart a fresh new blog post today, 2021-January-01! Here it is – Cheers!
I have been wanting to write publicly now for quite some time. In fact, over the past few years, I have written quite a few drafts and deleted them. For the record, I write on and off privately using a mixture of various paper journals and apps. I have to admit, I’ve become much more of a consumer of content rather than a creator. That makes me sad. I want to be a creator. I’ve long had this inner desire to create some sort of course, app, book, podcast, or thing. I get stuck with what kind of thing. Never get very far past daydreaming. I get stuck and don’t go anywhere.
As a consequence, my writing has atrophied a bit. I’m sure some of that is due to the consumerism nature of twitter, internet, books, etc…
So, early in 2020, I wanted to get started flipping my consumer/creator ratio around. Balance it if you will. On reflection, my first thought was I failed miserably, but I don’t know if that is true. In fact, I know that is false. In order to publicly write, one must have a public place to write.
Consequently, My first step was to resurrect my public blogs. I’ve done that in 2020, but I never took it anywhere. So, if I’m kind to myself, I did not fail, I only just took a small step. I’m not sure what holds me back from taking the next step, maybe the pandemic. Maybe its fear. Maybe its work. Maybe its comfort of a great life.
It doesn’t matter. Action is required to create. DOing!
I was looking at some of my older blog posts on my fitness website. I mentioned consistency is key. It’s funny, I stopped blogging about fitness, and my fitness activity increased dramatically. I’m super consistent now. I can say for the past few years, I’ve exercised more days that not exercised. Sometimes that exercise is a walk, sometimes it is lifting weights, cycling, yard work, etc… More recently, its been swimming. The one thing I’ve done is remained consistent, and I can really feel the difference. My physical fitness is dramatically better.
I think the same consistency is required for being a Creator.
Consistency is needed. Unfortunately, I have not found the action that I can hook into to create a habit of creating. There’s not a real good time for me to write or create. Family life, work life, personal life, all life just gets in the way. Again, first-world creature comforts. If we really assess, even in a year that was raged by pandemic and diametrically posed political groups, many U.S. citizens still have great comfort. For example, I have a warm, dry bed to sleep in. Clean air to breathe. Good food to eat. Family & friends to care for and love. All of that is comfortable. I’m truly blessed and do my best to give thanks. I know that many many people in the world, and in history, have life worse than I have. In fact, I’d hope an objective observer would say I have a great life. Comfort sometimes gets in the way of discomfort of creating. When I talk to bloggers/writes/creators, I also tell them I’m looking for consistency.
I’ve done this before, writing a blog post, and this is where I usually get to deleting the draft. Why? I just don’t have a good plan. I am afraid, that I will go days, weeks, maybe even years before my next public blog post. Then, I’ll be the hypocrite I don’t want to be. So…
…Rambling aside. I aim to Create, and I am to do so publicly. I hope it will help others, but as Godin mentions above, it will most definitely help me.
Consequently, I’m going to create a small goal for myself: 21 blog posts for 2021. I hope to surpass that, but 21 seems very reasonable. That’s roughly ~2 blog posts a month, 1.75 posts/month to be exact. Very achievable. I don’t even mention anything about length. I’m not going to let photos or editing hold me back. I’m going to create.
I have to admit, I am not fond of publicly pre-announce a goal. Some science studies state that when you do so, you’re less likely to achieve it. Here’s how I will get around that. I don’t know how much publicizing my creating I will do. There’s a difference between creating in public and then announcing to the world you created something in public. At some point, you need to do the latter if you want to grow an audience. I want organic growth. The first step is creating. Doing. Of course, If you stumble upon my work, that’s great. Please let me know if anything resonates.
For now, Wishing you all a safe, healthy & wealthy new year! Go 2021!