Writing Your First Blog Post is Fun, It’s Your Brain That Makes it Hard.
4 Mind Shifts that help you complete your first draft.
Let’s just get there,
Like any other field, writing isn’t an easy thing but not as hard as you think if you avoid chasing one word called “perfection.” Writing your first blog post can be troublesome. You might run out of words; you commit errors; you won’t get views and followers; you get shy to ask for critique, and the list goes on.
But that’s not “You” only — it’s the story of every pro writer who once struggled to put words — just like You. But there’s one uncommon thing: “Fear of Failure.”
It’s all about the mindset approach. Your first blog post can be fun if you don’t listen to all the negative thoughts that keep telling you it’s difficult. You’ll love the process if you stop caring about a few things while writing.
1) Forget faults and write unstoppable.
While writing your first blog post, one thing is obvious- errors. Don’t worry about them and write unstoppable. Do you remember when you took your first baby step? You didn’t care about falling then. You took one step — fell — then one more, and many followed.
The same phenomenon applies here. All you need is to write, write and write without being afraid of making mistakes.
2) Forget about views and followers.
If you are writing your first post on medium or any other platform, don’t get in the race of having more views and followers. You are not the one here; the people are waiting to read. Millions of top writers are publishing their content, and readers are desperately awaiting it.
Maybe you write something extraordinary that gets viral in a day, bringing you a lot of views and followers. But that’s not always the case. Hence, don’t let views and followers be your judge.
3) Don’t feel shy to get critique
Never feel bad to get your work critiqued by some senior writer. No matter how good you write, there’s always room for improvement. That’s well put by Tomas Chamorro.
Our self-protective instincts often avoid criticism because it is much nicer to live in a fictional world where everyone loves us, and nobody sees imperfections in us.
I know it doesn’t feel good to let someone postmortem the words that reflect your feelings and thoughts. But this is the only way to learn 10X faster.
4) Celebrate it like a milestone and reward yourself
You have achieved your first milestone by hitting that publish icon. Now embrace it, own it, and celebrate like crazy. Buy yourself a cup of coffee or watch your favorite Netflix show or whatever you love to reward yourself.
You might be thinking; it’s just a first blog post; you haven’t gained your 1000 followers or received a pat by Stephen King. What’s the point of giving it hype?
Wait, actually, there’s
You have left your comfort zone, or have ignored those social pop up, or may have missed your soul mate’s call just to hit that publish button. If that’s not the case, then at least you have defeated the so-called writer’s block that constantly tells, “You can’t do this.” So, it’s time to celebrate your small win.
To wrap things up, it’s never late to begin writing your first blog post. But if you are still between the devil and deep blue sea, remember the Samuel Beckett words.
Ever Tried. Ever Failed. No matter.
Try again. Fail again. Fail better.