This post was written to the sound of Twenty One Pilots. Here’s the playlist:
Begin writing your post... Easier said than done. There are so many things running around in your head that you could write about, but every time you start focusing on one, it starts to feel "not good enough". Who decides if it is good enough?
I think the answer to it is - the perfectionist.
This resulted in me failing my internal agreement: I wanted to publish a blog post on the first Friday of each month. In the beginning, I even delayed the launch to get more pre-written posts, so it would be easier to follow this internal agreement. This worked for three months - the initial "trilogy" as I call it. Once I ran out of the three posts I planned initially, I encountered a roadblock. I started questioning what should be next, what would be interesting to read, and what would fit my blog.
I think that this is the first mistake you can make when you do something for yourself - putting yourself in a box. For me, this blog is an outlet for me and my interests. Yes, the name and the initial posts have been technology and self-hosting-related, but this doesn't mean that I should limit myself to it. This blog is also about my experience of having a blog, writing, and most importantly, myself.
It is easy to lose track of why you started something, start questioning if you should continue and eventually abandon your projects. This is a very common occurrence, and here is what I noticed was stopping my progress.
There is the public opinion, but in reality, it is not that much about public opinion, as it is about what I think others would think about what I do. I start questioning myself as if I know what others think. Something that I noticed is that in reality, people around you, especially those who are relatively close, are there to support you, so it is important to remember them when you try to think of public opinion.
Then there's safety, or at least the thought of it. Putting yourself out there means being visible, and being visible means you can't control who reads what you write. My mind tends to take this further than it probably needs to go - what if something I write is taken out of context? What if it reaches the wrong person? What if visibility turns into being a target? I don't think I'm in any real danger, but the thought alone is enough to make you hesitate before hitting publish.
And finally, there is the lack of time, or to be more accurate - struggle to prioritise what matters to you. I kept and often still keep postponing important things for me - I will read the book tomorrow, I will work on the blog post on the weekend, and when that time comes, again, there is something more important than me.
In this state, we are missing a crucial part - ourselves.
We are social creatures, which means we care about public opinion and we don't want to damage our public image. If damaged seriously enough, that could result in a small death of the ego. Although most of the time, this is only in our heads, and others feel just like us, wanting to do something for themselves, but talking themselves out of it.
But what next?
This is where I got stuck. This is where I found myself shortly after publishing the January post. I had ideas that I was almost ready to write, but I had doubts... I doubted whether the topic of the post would be good enough and interesting enough for people to read. And then I started doubting if I can write the post well enough.
The result of this was me overthinking for the whole of January. January was tiring; I even got sick at the end of it, and when February rolled around, I had no other choice but to accept. Accept that the initial goal I set out for myself failed.
There is something freeing about failing to reach your goal early.
It frees you from stress - what if I am doing things wrong? It turns out I was doing things wrong. Not necessarily what I was writing was wrong, but my attitude towards it was. I was expecting myself to love writing every day. I was setting standards as if I had been writing for a long time, a world-renowned writer... But I wasn't. Most I had written before were essays about topics I didn't have any personal interest in, as tasked by professors in university or teachers in school. This was different.
Not having external obligations is a blessing and a curse, from my personal experience. It is easier, since you choose yourself what to do, but from what I had written earlier, choosing yourself is a difficulty of its own, too. It is harder, because you can find ways to let yourself slip once or more times, since internally, it is just you, and you can always go like - oh, I didn't feel good, I will give myself a pass this time... one time turns into five, and then you are just used to not doing it... and it is easier to not do it.
Writing this matters because admitting failure is the first step toward dealing with it. I still am excited about my self-hosted setup, my blog and sharing things with You. I will still write posts, and I will still aim for a monthly release cadence, and accepting that I am not an experienced writer is part of it.
My posts will not be perfect, no matter how much I try and no matter how long I obsess over every single word. My posts will not be interesting for everyone, because I am writing about myself and my experience. In the end, that is what I was trying to start with, not just this time. Years ago, when I was playing around with other blogging platforms, as mentioned earlier.
And I think that this is the goal of it, since:
- This is not my job
- This is not my profession
- This is a personal hobby project to improve my writing skills.
And there is nothing worse than turning a hobby into a chore, so I will not.
I will write about things I find interesting. I will write about things I find important. And I will write about things that I want to share with others.