Day #1 Diary of a Cookie CEO: 100 Days of Writing

I used to write all the time. Writing was how I first got my small business off the ground. It was how I connected with others…but more importantly, how I connected with myself.

As the business grew, and in the “busy-ness” of business, writing fell by the wayside. Every other little thing became so much more important — an endless hamster wheel of tasks “to do”. Like a dog trying to catch her tail. Last year I really struggled with fatigue. Getting out of bed each day & putting on my big girl pants became harder & harder; not wanting to confront the stresses of running a hospitality business & the relentless daily challenges that come with it.

But I know it’s not just me. Everybody’s fatigued. So many things, so many apps vying for our attention. So much mindless consumption.

A world so connected that we’re disconnected.

I hated social media so much. A bit rich coming from a business owner who initially got her business off the ground through it. I wanted to run. Even deleting my personal social media accounts because I hated it so much. Then everyone telling me that I needed to be doing more social media. And I get it. I know the business relies on it. I had to do it for my team. I should do it.

Should being the operative word here.

I would tell myself to replace the world ‘should’ with the words ‘I get to’. Attempting to change the lens with which I viewed it.

I should go to the gym, becomes

I get to go to the gym!

I should post on social media, becomes

I get to post on social media!

But alas, not even my well intentioned false positivity was capable of tricking my sorry ass into doing it.

I thought back to how I used to do it when I started Moustache at 21 & what has changed since then. There are many things that have changed, but one of them that stood out was writing. I used to write so much when I was younger. Even if it wasn’t for others, writing just for myself.

And now I never do.

Back then it wasn’t really about the likes or the amount of followers or going ‘viral’. Social media was just a place to share who you were. KISS 😙 Hahaha did anyone else get taught KISS growing up in NZ primary school in the 90's?? My teachers even at 9 years old used to tell me “Keep it simple, stupid!”. So easy to get caught up in what everyone else is doing & then thinking that’s what your life needs to look like also. But life really is quite simple & us humans seem to make it so unnecessarily complex.

I don’t even know if blogging is a thing anymore or if people like to read deranged people’s thoughts hahahah but fuck it. Back in 2012 when I opened the doors of Moustache, it was my writing that got me through.

So I have set myself a challenge. 100 Days of Writing Challenge — so in the next 52 weeks I need to write 100 pieces of writing. Doesn’t have to be long. Just get 100 pieces out. I need to get over myself. Y’know, not everything you produce needs to be perfect. And not every single piece of content needs to be Shakespearean. It’s cool just turning up, just as you are in that given moment.

Like kintsugi.

Kintsugi is the ancient Japanese art of repairing broken pottery with gold. The “flaws” reveal the history of it and the end result is considered more beautiful & valuable than the original.

The very concept of kintsugi is to not hide the cracks, but rather accept and highlight them.

So I know I need to write more. That it’s so so good for me.

But why are the things that are so good for you, the very things that we resist so much?

“Fear is good. Like self-doubt, fear is an indicator. Fear tells us what we have to do.

Remember our rule of thumb: The more scared we are of a work or calling, the more sure we can be that we have to do it.

Resistance is experienced as fear; the degree of fear equates to the strength of Resistance. Therefore the more fear we feel about a specific enterprise, the more certain we can be that that enterprise is important to us and to the growth of our soul. That’s why we feel so much Resistance. If it meant nothing to us, there’d be no Resistance.”
― Steven Pressfield, The War of Art: Winning the Inner Creative Battle

How to push past the resistance…? Here I am, standing at the berth, wondering if I’ll ever make it out to sea.

To make it real for me, for every blog entry that I’m short of at the end of the 52 weeks, I will donate $1000 per blog that I didn’t write, to charity. So for example if I only write 80 pieces (so I’m short 20) then I’ll need to donate $20,000 to charity.

Ha ha, at first I actually wrote $100 per blog, but that would only equate to $2000 if I missed 20. And a part of me literally went, “Oh yeah, I could do that”. But what I actually need, is a figure that scares me. Dang is that why Asian parents used to smack us with slippers as kids, ’cause fear is the most powerful form of control?! 🤣 Haha, nah I watched the Hunger Games movies the other weekend in which President Snow says “Hope is the only thing stronger than fear”.

Hope is the belief in the possibility that what one desires will happen. And that you have the ability to make it happen.

So I just added an extra zero onto the end to scare me a little into this. But I also have hope that I have the ability to fulfill the promises I’ve made to myself this year. I have agency over my own life.

Day #1 done. Now only $99,000 worth of writing to go 😂