My writing syndrome — A step into a new dawn
I have tried countless times to start blogging about my chosen part as a data analyst and business intelligence professional. Every time, I open a new tab and click on the google doc page that I have long bookmarked. I just stare for hours at the blank google doc document, waiting for the perfect ideas or words to suddenly appear. I will read medium for hours daily, looking for writing advice, inspiration, ideas, and more.
Whenever I thought I have the perfect idea or words to express my thought. I will successfully talk myself out of it. Why? Well, these are some of my reasons: “What if I’m not good enough”, “This is not the right time to start blogging about my experience”, “No one will read your blog”, “It’s time-consuming, you won’t be able to make the time for it”, and finally “ You don’t have a story to share”
Right now, it’s 9 am GMT + 1 staring at a once beautiful green tree which had completely shed all its leaves, so as to regenerate new ones. Amazing right? After staring prolonged and amazed by the phenomenon of nature. I start to understand that what if, all my negative reasons are more reasons why I should start a blog. A blog that speaks about a young man voyage to become the best at his career. He has no blogging experience, he is not good enough, he was afraid no one will read his blog and not to mention that he felt he has no story to tell.
Just right there, I remembered what my mentor said told me. That there is always a first time for everything and If I commit my time and apply myself to becoming or learning anything I have a strong desire for. You most certainly, will thrive.
The six (6) words that change everything — “What if I’m not good enough?”
It always starts with these six (6) words, playing like a song in my head — what if I’m not good enough? What if I enjoy reading, but only have an image of enjoying writing .. What if, I’m actually pretty rubbish at writing? What if any success I have had so far has just been a fluke?
I’m sure, I’m not the only blogger who’s ever had those thoughts — more times than we can admit. Perhaps you reading this right now, feel that way too.
Even when I tried to wake up early in the morning and attempt to say, of course, I’m good enough and successfully psych myself to believe it for a while. It won’t be long, before the what if I’m not good enough feeling set in again. Who am I(or anyone else!) to tell me that I’m good enough? But I think that invalidates a deep, difficult fear for a lot of us.
To be honest, I don’t like academic writing. I have always sucked at it, the English Language has not been easy for me to master. Maybe, because I have never really dedicated time and effort to truly learn it. Well, I’m ready and just like many tutorials. I will be doing so, by practice.
Defining my terms & expectation
I always thought blogging was more about experts sharing their experience in their career or new challenges. But, when I came to realize that blogging is like any skill set and one of the keys to its success is defining what you want both in the long and short run. The moment, I arrived at an answer it made sense to want to write about everything.
What if I’m not just good enough to be a good blogger?
You will never be able to write anything until you define what “good” means — to you. Writing has different indicators to measure good write-ups, from “commercial success”, to “literary acclaim”, to “personal fulfillment”. I’m writing for personal fulfillment, using my blog post to reach out and motivate young change-makers across the world who are currently embarking on the continual chase of career fulfillment. In addition, I’m using my blogs to contribute to knowledge and share my career experience in the world. I will be embarking on real-world projects, contributing to open-source research, traveling for conferences and facilitating workshops. The very moment I acknowledge this, I didn’t quite care about if I’m going to have only one reader and be able to motivate one person to do that thing they want to do, without alway talking themselves out of it. I was just driven to have personal fulfillment.
Probably, your idea of “good” includes one or more of the following:
- Making a living from your writing, so you can quit your day job.
- Getting lots of positive reviews from readers
- Impressing your parents (or friends, blog readers, etc).
- Doing what you love — writing — every day.
- Having your work published by a traditional publisher.
There’s no right answer to what constitutes success, but it’s important to know what it looks like for you. To me, I’m writing for personal fulfillment, since I acknowledge this, I’m more concern with what’s personal fulfillment to me (Even if, along the way, I get a few negative reviews).
The definition of “good enough” is inextricably tied up with what a person sees as “good”. For instance, if I want to get my article featured in Havard Business Review (HBR), then I will probably need quite a different writing skills from someone who wants to make a living doing technical writing, or if, I’m a travel blogger.
More so, it can be hard to trust your own judgment, or that of people close to you, when you’re worrying about whether or not you’re good enough. There are a lot of writers who worry that they aren’t good enough, even when they’re perfectly competent — or potentially fantastic — writers. Not to mention, best-selling writers, who receive poor criticism and reviews about your write-ups. So, it’s not always going to be rosy. You just have to want it enough.
In the (host of This American Life), Ira Glass said: “ All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you”
In conclusion, if you were like me that worried about not being good enough to see the success you want — leave a comment below, tell us what makes you think that and what you’re going to do in order to get better at blogging?
And if you’re secretly, quietly, hopefully thinking that you are good enough .. then I’m pretty sure you are. Comment below to share how you’ll move forward, confident in your blogging ability.
