Learning to Write for Yourself
Revealing Secret #4 of My Unbroken 288-Day Writing Streak: Write Like No One’s Watching (Part 4/6)
Changing Your Writing Mindset
This year has been a year of desperation for me.
In my lack of experience in building an audience and naivety…
- I’ve expected “Quick Results.”
- I’ve expected to earn my first online $ “Quickly.”
- I’ve expected to make a serious dent within the first six months of consecutive writing.
However, none of these have happened.
Things are as slow as they come. I’m growing at a snail's pace.
Thanks to the “real-world” experience of writing one article a day, my expectations have dialled down somewhat.
My mind is experiencing the reality of the early days of a new endeavour — something it’s not used to.
It’s been a bitter pill to swallow.
The biggest takeaway?
If you’re writing on the internet from the perspective of earning money or building an audience then it isn’t a short-term endeavour.
It is rather a fairly long one.
When I think like this, the ability to write and continue improves.
You’re not going to like this — but rather than thinking about your writing as a 6 or 12-month effort, you need to think in terms of decades.
But thinking in terms of decades can also become daunting and stop you from doing the work.
It feels like a lot of effort overflowing with uncertainty.
So what do you do?
Forget followers. Forget earning money.
Because when you do, you get discouraged easily.
Write as if no one is watching.
Focus on your own learning. Focus on invoking your internal curiosity.
Explore new angles. Accept your limitations and your mistakes.
Be kind.
Remind your inner voice that you’re learning, that you’d be supportive and wouldn’t criticize had a friend come up to you asking for feedback for something similar.
Be attentive to your writing while being ignorant of the results.
If you can, you’d be unstoppable.
Are you ready?
