I Wrote 30 Articles in 30 Days — This is What Happened
How it changed me as a writer—not about how many views I bagged, or how much money I made
I like conducting experiments.
Writing one article per day for a month was my most recent experiment. And one of the most fruitful ones as well. I ended up writing a lot of pieces for my blog, and many chapters for my coming ebook as well. In this piece, I want to talk about what I learned from this 30-day run. Let’s dive in.
I realized that the language between you and your mind is not the same as the language between you and others.
Have you heard someone say, or ever said it yourself, “I understand it, but I’m unable to explain it”?
How is that possible?
If you understand it, you should be able to explain it to someone, right? But sometimes, you’re not. This implies that the language between you and your mind (A) is not the same as the language between you and others (B).
What are these languages?
- Language (A ) is intuitive thinking, or what we call gut instincts. Something inside you tells you what you need to do, but you cannot explain to others why.
- Language (B) is analytical thinking. This is the language between people — and has types like English, French, Spanish, etc.
What I’ve realized is this.
Writing online for an audience forces one to translate what they only know intuitively, to know the idea analytically as well. Because only when there’s a coherent analytical outlet for an idea, will the readers be able to make sense of the article. Therefore, after having written an article about any idea or concept, you end up knowing the same idea in both languages — as opposed to just one like before. This makes the concept more solid in your head.
This is exactly why the Feynman technique works; the principle of which is — “The best way to learn is to teach.”
Hence, if you want to learn about Life, writing online for an audience is one of the best ways to do so.
How Pareto’s Principle Helped Me
Pareto’s principle is simple but revolutionary. The Pareto principle states that for many outcomes, roughly 80% of consequences come from 20% of causes. In my case, it meant that 20% of my articles were responsible for 80% of my views.
I knew this. But I never experienced it before. In these 30 days, I experienced it firsthand. Here’s how it helped me: it helped me detach myself from the results, and focus on the process of showing up.
Earlier, I used to get hung up on how every article of mine performed. Now I know that I shouldn’t do so. Even if 80% of my articles don’t perform well, I must remember that the remaining 20% will make up for it.
And hence, I have just learned to show up. I have detached myself from the results — and continue to show up. The rest will take care of itself.
Whatever your journey might be — learn to show up irrespective of the results. Yes, learn from each one of your attempts. However, don’t take everyone so seriously. It’s a numbers game. Just keep showing up — the results will come.
If you remove ‘No’ as an option, all there’s left is ‘Yes’
I’ve been a writer for more than 2 years now. But never have I ever written more than 15 articles in a month. And those months were very few as well — and I had to cognitively drain myself to be able to pull those off.
But this time, I wrote 30 articles in 30 days — and I did it so easily. Here’s why. I removed ‘no’ as an option. How? I decided to build a streak.
As you can in the image above, I decided to write 1 article per day for 30 days, and each day I did so, my streak got bigger. This induced in me a primal instinct: the desire to protect what you built. This desire to not let my streak break was so fucking powerful that it removed ‘No’ as an option. I had to write an article every day. ‘No’ was just not an option. And so I did.
Consider his; let’s say if I don’t feel like writing on day 17, would I skip my article that day? No way. I cannot break my streak. The need to protect my streak is far more powerful than my laziness.
Therefore, trust me, building streaks is one of the best and easiest ways to build habits that might change your life. Start today.
How writing listicles helped me
Listicles have gotten a bad reputation. And I understand why. They’re easier to write than coherent essays — so they don’t challenge you as a writer. But since I had to write an article every day, having some easy days where I wrote listicles made sense for me. So I did — a few like —
- 7 signs of spiritual intelligence.
- 7 signs you’re respected by the people around you.
- 7 signs of high emotional maturity.
Here’s what I discovered. Let’s say I decide to write a listicle on spiritual intelligence. Now, when I begin I can only think of a couple of signs for the topic — easy. For the other five — I have to do research. I have to think. And this research and cognitive effort that I put in helped me actually learn more about spiritual intelligence than I knew before.
I also came up with a novel way to come up with listicle headings that helped me in real life. For whatever topic I chose — say spiritual intelligence — I looked at the people around me. I asked myself — “So in this friend ‘A’ of mine, there must be some spiritual intelligence. What is it?” And then I went to B, C and so on… Doing this, I killed two birds —
- I learned to write listicles.
- I learned to appreciate people around me, and be more grateful for them.
Hence, even if you’re not a writer, write lists.
- 10 ways to do this or that.
- 10 signs of [Insert good or bad trait]
- 10 hacks to achieving [Something that people desire]
In any list, the first few will be easy. For the later ones, you’ll have to rack your brain — and that will help you get smarter.
Induced necessity leads to increased competence
Necessity is the mother of invention. Let me tell you how this applied in my case.
Earlier, my goal was to write often. I know. Vague as fuck. And since my goal was vague, it automatically adjusted itself to match my earlier competence. My competence defined what “often” meant for me. This means that since I didn’t know how to come up with a lot of article ideas (low competency), the goal and result were also a low number of articles —even though it felt like I wrote ‘often’.
Now, my goal was to write 30 articles in 30 days. Very specific. But hey, I was not competent enough to write that many articles in a month. And hence, to fir my goal, my competence had to adjust. I was forced to invent new ways to come up with article ideas because there was a need to do so.
To simplify:
- Earlier, my goal was vague and amenable to change— so my goal got adjusted to match my competency. And hence, my competency remained the same.
- Now, my goal was specific — and not amenable to change, and hence, my competency had to match my goal, and that’s why my competency grew.
This is why you should set very specific goals at least a little bit outside your competency. This will create a need for your competency to grow, and you’ll grow in the process. Indeed, necessity is the mother of invention and growth.
Final thoughts
Do I recommend this experiment? HELL YES. If you’re a writer, please try to write 30 articles in 30 days. It can be life-changing. It was for me — and hence I’ve decided to extend my experiment. Can’t wait to see what happens. Anyway, let’s recap what we discussed in this article:
- The language between you and your mind is not the same as the language between you and others. Writing online forces you to know any idea in both languages — and hence, learn about anything deeply.
- Pareto’s principle is real. And hence, even though you should learn from the results, you should just focus on showing up. The results will come. Stay detached.
- Remove ‘no’ as an option by forming streaks and watch what it does for your consistency.
- Writing lists can help you grow smarter.
- Set very specific goals (not amenable to change) at least a little outside your current competence. This will force your competence to grow.
