All I have to do is write a minimum of 100 words a day, every day.
Easy!
Then hit the publish button.
Terrifying.
The answer? A project that will act as a double edged sword. It’ll be a sword I wield rather than attempt to dodge.
Through this project I hope to apply a few important ideas I’ve picked up from people much smarter than me. Ideas that keep echoing in my head, asking to be put into practice:
- Simplicity: to re-frame as much as possible through the lens of simplicity by regularly asking, to quote Tim Ferriss, “what would this look like if it were easy?”
- Projects (doing and finishing): the process of working on a project is satisfying. It feels good. It feels healthy. And you are left with a record of your effort, a thing that exists and marks your improvement. I’d like to make projects a regular feature in my life.
- Starting small: starting small in both quantity and expectations. By this I mean lowering expectations until there’s no fear holding me back from starting a project or a piece. It’s also about letting the work be flawed and real rather than perfect and imaginary.
Secondly, and more importantly, I want to address my fears by publicly sharing words every day. The main fear is of being judged; a worry that others will think my work is bad or my thoughts and ideas are weird or somehow lacking.
It’s this concern of others, you, thinking badly of me that makes me agonise over each word I write. Editing and changing so as to not accidentally offend. Always reflecting on how another might perceive what I am writing.
“Too self indulgent, that’s what they’ll think” A thought which nearly made me not hit the publish button. I’ve had a medium account for a long time but this will be the first post that I publish. These thoughts are the reason why I’ve haven’t posted before.
I am too old for that now.
This project is an antidote. A healing balm applied directly to my weaknesses:
/- perfectionism
/- a tendency to over complicate
/- an acute fear of being negatively perceived
/- vulnerability
During his incredible 2012 commencement speech Neil Gaiman said:
“ The moment that you feel that, just possibly, you’re walking down the street naked, exposing too much of your heart and your mind and what exists on the inside, showing too much of yourself. That’s the moment you may be starting to get it right.”
I really hope he’s not wrong.