Why I Started Writing on Medium
Online writing has become my saving grace
When I first created a Medium account, my goal was simply to establish a habit of writing regularly. Something like 1x/a week so it’s not too intimidating to keep up but also challenging enough to keep me on my toes.
What triggered me to adopt this weekly publishing habit?
I’m at a point in my life where I’m a few weeks shy of turning 25 years old. As I get older, I want to create more than I consume. I want to give more than I receive. Why?
For the past 2 years, I lived a hedonistic lifestyle and reached a breaking point of utter disgust. I don’t ever want to live or feel that way about myself again. I knew I had to stop comforting myself and do hard things to preserve my sanity. To earn my trust and respect, I had to commit to a goal and take ownership. No matter the odds. No matter the results.
I wanted to pursue a goal that I had some natural talent for and yet have plenty of room to learn and grow. A goal that could compound over the long term and make me a better person. Online writing seemed to check these boxes.
Currently, I’m not too focused on the follower count, engagement, and money aspects of writing. I won’t lie it’s a nice ego boost when these vanity metrics do well for my posts but that’s not my underlying motivation.
I write for selfish reasons. I cherry-pick topics that resonate with me. I’m simply following whatever sparks my curiosity and passion for human progress. Kind of like a public diary minus any parts I don’t feel comfortable sharing. Bonus points if it positively influences someone.
A secondary reason for my writing is the hope that it will help me create my own experience that goes beyond traditional credentials. Online writing could help me leverage the power of the Internet to form new connections and unlock opportunities I never thought were possible.
But for now, my goal is simply to prove to myself that I can stay the course even when it gets hard and churn out content every week. The results will take of themselves.
Even if I don’t get the engagement and money I desire, at the very least, I can say I wrote on Medium consistently for a year and have a library of content. That I undertook a permissionless personal project that aided in my personal growth. I may not have the sexy external results to speak of but at least I did something. And not many people can say that since most people just mindlessly consume.
I know this because not too long ago I was one of the “lurkers” on the internet, sitting on the sidelines watching the real action happen while I was still debating if I should join in or not.
Writing on Medium is my way of shutting up that mean inner voice and seeing what happens if I dare to show my work publicly.
Life is too short to let your fears prevent you from doing what you aspire to do. And I know for a fact that I’m going to regret not documenting and sharing what I know. So it felt like a no-brainer to start writing online.
Finally, why did I choose Medium of all the social media platforms?
Facebook is outdated.
Instagram is a photo-sharing app that rewards beauty so posting my writing there made 0 sense.
Since a lot of my writing is personal, LinkedIn didn’t seem like an appropriate platform as it feels more corporate.
Twitter is a great tool but can be a rage machine sometimes. The Twitter algorithm seems to amplify divisive and polarizing content and sometimes this can truly skew your perception of reality.
Plus I have too much stuff to say so condensing my thoughts to 280 characters felt impossible. Also while I enjoy Twitter for its bite-sized content, the trade-off is nuance.
I wanted to write someplace where I could publish long-form nuanced content but still get some social feedback. That’s the reason I didn’t start my personal blog as no one would know of its existence. Medium seemed to be the perfect tool to a) start publishing from Day 1 and b) get some traction. Medium lets you focus purely on writing so you don’t have to worry about building a website and marketing it.
Let’s see how this experiment goes. I’m excited to dive deep into this platform, publish my pieces and get to know other wonderful writers!
