A few days before February 1st, I decided to take on the challenge of writing every day for a month. To really crank up the growth opportunity (a fancy way of saying intense discomfort) I knew the writing would have to live in a public location like a blog.
I took two days to create a blog name and decide on and set up the technology. And then I started writing.
Why I did it
I realized recently that I spend over 90% of my time consuming versus creating. I knew immediately that I wanted to flip the ratio. I decided to start with writing because it would require minimal resources. Also because I thought I hated writing and was curious to see if I could flip that belief as well.
My super uncomfortable – I mean growth opportunity-filled – theme for the year is The Year of Being Seen. Over the years I seem to have developed a surprising aversion to certain types of visibility. I’m fine expressing myself in person; probably one of the last adjectives people would use to describe me is meek. But being seen online, where who I am doesn’t just dissipate in transient experiences, is almost painful. I had to step into the discomfort once I realized this was such a thing for me. I don’t like feeling constrained, especially when the constraint is coming from within.
What I discovered
I am really uncomfortable being seen in this way. I set up this blog with a new domain so no one would know who I was. That was the only way I could tolerate going live with the site. The only person I told about the experiment was my husband. About two weeks into the month I told one more person, and another a few days after that. A week later I added my name to the metadata. Two days ago I added links to some of my social media. All of this, even the initially totally anonymous blog, felt excruciatingly uncomfortable. It’s been neat to watch my reactions to each new mini-challenge and then watch as the discomfort dissolves without anything horrible following in its wake.
Extreme perfectionism wasn’t nearly as difficult to abandon as I thought. The way I used to write was perfectionism on steroids (this is the way I’ve approached most of my life). These days, though, I simply don’t have the time or desire to spend several hours a day for thirty days writing a blog post. So I set a time limit for writing: ideally thirty minutes or less, no more than one hour. I rarely had the time or energy to edit and re-edit, some days I didn’t even reread what I wrote (I can’t believe these things are true even as I type this sentence). Every time I finished writing a post I’d publish immediately, ask my husband to read it, and pretend I wasn’t staring at him as he read. When I couldn’t stand it anymore I’d say “It probably totally sucks but that’s okay, at least I wrote something, but does it totally suck? Never mind, doesn’t matter.” I reminded myself that quality wasn’t part of the challenge, yet I still feel this every time I publish a new post. And yet I continue to publish new posts. I can now formally say that my name is Anna, and I am a recovering perfectionist. It’s much easier this way, even if it is occasionally uncomfortable.
Innate creativity is really real. One of the most valuable outcomes of this experiment is that I have more tangible proof of the innate creativity I believe is present in all of us. I was very surprised to discover that I always have something to write about. I don’t know if it’s good, or interesting, or of value to anyone (I hope it is), but I’ve somehow always managed to find something to say. In addition to limiting my writing time to thirty minutes I decided not to research or extensively plan post ideas. I have kept a simple list of post themes, but the only thing I brought to a writing session was at most a title idea or a quote. And a quiet mind. What I found was that once I stripped away the perfectionism, research, strategizing, planning, and what-if-ing, words flowed through me and I wrote.
I could totally write a book. Before this experiment, writing an entire book seemed more daunting than hiking up Kilimanjaro in heels (I don’t wear heels). I don’t know if I will write a book, or if it would be a good book, but now I know it’s possible. If I wrote every day, with some loose plan or theme, I could have a first draft of a book in less than a year. This is not a unique revelation – I’ve read The Artist’s Way, The Power of Habit, Atomic Habits, countless other books and research articles about starting small, etc. etc. But it’s actually true! I could do it! I’m almost giggling at the thought of this very real possibility, something that felt nearly impossible just one month ago. I could totally write a book. Wow.
What’s next
I’m going to continue my daily writing practice. It’s become a habit and it’s making me a more interesting person. Seth Godin is right about the benefits of writing and reading blogs.
The next hard thing for me to face will be sharing my writing. It’s here, a few people are reading it (Hi!), and now I need to take a less passive approach to being seen. I’ll let you know how it goes.
♥ Anna