It's Time To Start
“Being fearless precisely when you are most scared is the best hack.” – James Altucher
I’ve been holding off on getting my personal blog going.
Getting into a consistent writing habit is something that’s important to me.
When I’m writing consistently…
The ideas that I’m learning are further solidified in my mind through teaching them.
I get better and better at forming my thoughts into cohesive statements.
I have an outlet, outside of business-talk, to unload my brain.
I find ways to relate to more people through being vulnerable and transparent about my life and businesses.
I have a resource to point people to on certain topics. If someone asks me what I thought about a book, I can point them to book notes that I share on the blog, for example.
Writing is like a muscle. The more often I do it, the better I get at it. When I stop for a long time, the skill begins to fade.
I’ve been telling myself that I can’t start yet because I haven’t decided the platform to blog on… Should I setup a blog on WordPress? Maybe Medium is better right now… If I write on Substack, the blog posts automatically get emailed to people… That’s kind of cool.
I’ve been telling myself that I can’t start yet because I don’t know exactly what to write about. If I write the wrong thing, people will think less of me. If I form a weird sentence, people will think I’m stupid… Maybe I should just hold off until I have the exact right thing to say.
I’ve been telling myself that I shouldn’t start a personal blog because I’ve already got a solid brand over at Hustle & Flowchart. If I blog on a personal blog, people won’t know where to go to read or hear my thoughts.
Well, here’s the reality of the situation.
The platform that I blog on doesn’t matter because it’s not permanent. I can write on Substack for now and easily copy it over to WordPress or Medium later.
Not knowing what to write about is an excuse. I have years worth of journals that I’ve written. Getting thoughts out of my head and into written form is not the issue.
Avoiding writing my personal thoughts on a separate platform is a cop-out. A very specific type of person listens to Hustle & Flowchart. Those people would likely also enjoy my thoughts here as would a new audience who might enjoy the other types of things on my mind.
The truth is that all of the above excuses existed to hide my fear.
I was scared of looking stupid.
I was scared of making divisive posts.
I was scared to blog about anything other than business and marketing.
I was scared to put my thoughts into the world and I’ve hid behind BS excuses in order to avoid exposing myself and being vulnerable.
That’s exactly why it’s time to start.
I listened to a podcast between Tim Ferriss and Seth Godin recently.
They talked about writers block and feeling like they’ll never be able to write as good as they once did.
Seth made a comment that, if you ever want to get good at writing, you’ll need to create a lot of bad writing first.
Over time your writing will get better and the people that think like you or who are interested in what you have to say will gravitate towards you.
So that’s what I’m doing.
I’m starting my writing habit again…
Writing badly until my writing doesn’t suck.
It’s the start of a new week and the start of a month. I can’t think of a better time.
Hopefully this post will be the kickstart I need to keep it going.