Journey so far
When I started this blog, I wished to get to at least 10 days, and here we are! 90 days more to go (89 including this post), and I will finish my goal to write daily for 100 days.
I know I’m still beginning, but I feel like I crossed my first major milestone. But even it is only 10 days, it wasn’t easy 10 days. It’s like exercising. At the beginning, you have the fervor to go to the gym, but after the 3rd, 4th day, you start thinking if it is worth it, and maybe you just stay at home and chill—the same thing with daily blogging. But as with exercise, it gets easier every day, and you enjoy it.
Why I started this 100days challenge?
The reason is quite simple. I want to figure out what I want to write about and share with people. I wanted to put myself out there.
Before I started, I knew I wanted to write about Blockchain and technology in general, but that was it. I’m still figuring things out, but I have a bit clearer picture. It becomes more evident every day, and I hope it stays that way throughout the 100 days and further.
I always wanted to have something of my own, like a YouTube channel, blog, or Podcast. I like watching different YouTubers and listening to podcasts, and I wanted to do something like that. I always had this fear of “who will read me?” “Will people judge me?” etc. I gave up a bit on that. I had my upticks in going back to it. I recorded the podcast episode but never released it, same with Youtube.
Throughout my career in Blockchain, I started to speak in front of people at different meet-ups, webinars. To my surprise, people came and listened to me. Not everybody was happy about that. Some people left, some people stayed during my lectures. After some time, it hit me. It’s not about how many people quit during my speech; it’s how many stayed. That led to the realization that there will always be people with similar interests and world views, but you need to show your work and put yourself out there to reach them.
I started speaking more confidently about my work with others, sharing my opinions, going and speaking at more meet-ups, building my confidence. But then the Pandemic hit.
During Covid, I focused on my work, my wife, and my family. I had few moments where I wanted to start something, but I never did due to “lack of time”. To my surprise, some people reached out to me to give some small interviews, talk about my work. I was still on some loop of sharing my story and ideas with others, but it still wasn’t like I planned it.
Recently I just thought, “fuck it”. If I don’t start, I never start, and I will just along the way. People probably won’t read my blog initially, so I will have time to practice my craft and find what I want to write about. If you are reading this, thank you, and I hope this is interesting for you. That’s the brief story of starting this blog.
A funny thing happened yesterday. Matt D’Avella released a video where he talks about his beginnings on YouTube. The mindset he had is similar to mine. You can watch his video below.
How I keep writing?
I found very early not having a plan for what to write about will bite you in the ass really quickly. I sat down one morning and dumped my brain to a computer screen of topics that are in the area of my interests. This will help you to focus on writing than thinking about what to write about and wander into a dangerous area of thinking "I don’t have anything to write about" . Just sit and dump your brain onto paper or a note-taking app. After few hours, you can always revisit and remove/add topics you want to share with others.
That was the first step. The second one is having consistent writing times so you will condition yourself to write. For me, it’s writing in the morning, after walking out the dog and eating breakfast with my wife. When I get up earlier, I do this before breakfast. Having your specified time helps a lot.
I want to do next but still haven’t done that is write a couple of articles in advance. Why? There are days when something happens, or work just eats you for a whole day, and you won’t have the strength to write. Having few articles in the “backpack” will make you stay sane and stress-free.
Just remember, I’m no expert, I’m just sharing my story here and what worked for me. I’m still on the 10th day (this is 11, to be exact) of writing. I didn’t even finish my journey, but it will be a fun experience to get back to these posts and look at what has changed in my process every 10 days.
Gary Vee has said many times, “Document, don’t create” and this is what I’m doing here. Documenting my journey, and I hope it will be helpful to anybody.
I’m not good at goodbyes and, as it turns out, also ending personal posts, so…👋