What I Have Learned from Writing Blogs In 2020

Before the start of 2020, I wanted to make a challenge. The challenge was about producing a piece of blog content—one per month at least.

It was a mental exercise. For the longest time, I wanted to write and share. But the biggest fear that held me back was—what should I write about?

What could a person like me share with the world? Do I even have anything interesting to add? This kind of mindset kept me from sharing whatever I had in mind.

The fear of thinking what if people don't like what I write—I guess it's part of human nature. What we share, we hope someone else will appreciate it.

I am an introvert. So mostly, I have been the type of person that thinks a lot inside of his head and doesn't say much at first. But when I'm really passionate about something, there's something inside me that's burning. Something I'm eager to share.

I used to write a lot of poems. Back then, poetry was a gateway for me to express my thoughts and feelings in written words. At first, I kept it to myself. But later on, chose to share it openly with others on social media.

A small group of people cared about what I wrote. The feeling was great. I loved writing poems day-in and day-out. But at times I let the fear get the best of me. It made me narrow-minded as I became worried about what people might think of me. When you let fear dictate you and your thoughts. It will hold you back from producing what you are passionate about.

It was an experiment 

The challenge I embarked on was a way for me to experiment with what I could write about. To see what pieces of content came more naturally to me or not. 

For example, writing about stuff that's personal to me, and how I did things were a lot easier. I didn't have to sit and wait for days to start writing—I would write whatever came to mind—what was dear to me.

My intention behind the content was also to share pieces or glimpses of who I am—what's behind the scene. Not all the content shared was personally about me. But some of them were such as "Introversion Became My Strength" and "What Being A Designer Gave Me". 

As Brené Brown: " In order for connection to happen, we have to allow ourselves to be seen - really seen".

It's not easy to be vulnerable. It's not easy to share some part of yourself with the world. We strive to be perfect in every way to be liked by people. So we only share the best part of us, and never the ugly. If our sole purpose is to impress people, we start to lose sight of who we really are.

That's the reason why I admire people who are vulnerable and don't shy away from who they are. Even if they are introverts. They know how to leverage that. Those kinds of people inspire me to be a little bit more vulnerable than I was yesterday. 

Writing some of these blog content has been therapeutic in some way. It makes me reflective as I write them—even this one. 

I never had the intention to gain likes on Twitter, LinkedIn, or claps on Medium. If it was my intention, I would have stopped after the first or second blog content. 

For some of the blog content, I wrote I received something while others nothing. But it didn't stop me at all. The purpose went beyond likes and claps. 

I was trying to find my voice in a noisy world. I might not be there yet completely, but this challenge was a push for me to find it.

What I have learned in short 

• It’s okay to be vulnerable about who you are—people who care and resonates with what you have to say will show up and support you 
• Have the mindset of an amateur—they are not afraid of sharing, learning is more important 
• Be intentional with what do you—don’t base it on likes and recognition, people will smell it
• Follow people who’s not afraid of showing the ugly and imperfect side of things—instead of following people who only show glamour 
• You can find your voice in different ways—through writing, podcasting, vlogs, graphics, etc.

See you next year 

To be honest, I didn’t always have the motivation to complete the challenge. Sometimes I thought it would be easier to just quit. One time I was overthinking about a subject to write about. That meant I totally missed September. But overall, I'm very pleased to have at least put the effort into doing this. It inspired me to continue putting in the same amount of effort, if not more next year.