The Anniversary Edition - 44th Edition of Pivot Points
Never give up on a dream just because of the time it will take to accomplish it. The time will pass anyway.
Earl Nightingale (radio speaker and author)
A year ago, I started this blog with no experience whatsoever in publishing; offline or online. I was going through a period time in my life where I felt frustrated and was wondering whether I was living a fulfilled life or just going through the motions of being a working professional. As I’ve mentioned in previous blog posts, I have a fairly long work commute which varies between 1.5 to 2 hours one way. I started listening to podcasts to fill the time, with the hopes of passively learning something new along the way. Over time, I found myself gravitating towards podcasts that were focused on entrepreneurs and people that really challenged themselves to create a legacy and potentially do some good.
I’ve always been an avid reader and enjoy writing so one morning the idea hit me to give a try at blogging. After all, blogs are relatively easy to start and require a low investment so, what did I have to lose? I had so many questions in my mind to answer: What platform should I use? Should I publish weekly or biweekly or monthly? What should I write about? Will people read it? Will anyone like it? Do I even care if no one likes it? I had to sort out all of these questions and ultimately decided that instead of trying to be perfect and get everything just right, to just start and figure it out along the way.
I watched several YouTube tutorials and read articles to research the best way forward. I started writing three or four posts at a time so that I would have a nice pipeline of content to publish every Sunday. Armed with a little bit of knowledge, encouragement from my closest supporters and the desire to have something that was all mine, I published my first post on September 21, 2018. I certainly made mistakes along the way (some more obvious than others) but I uncharacteristically gave myself permission to leave perfection behind and not take myself too seriously.
44 posts later, I’m still going strong and want to thank everyone who has taken the time to read my posts, give me feedback and even suggest topics. I started this blog for personal reasons— to fill something in me that felt I could do more. (I still have that feeling by the way.) As I wrote, I was pleasantly surprised to receive emails and feedback about how my posts were helping readers through some difficult times and decisions. By design, I don't host ads on my blog because I think it takes away from the authenticity of what I’m trying to accomplish which is just to share observations and thoughts whether ten people read it or a thousand.
For this anniversary edition, I recycled a quote from Earl Nightingale that I used in my first post. It’s one of my favorites and whenever I’m feeling unmotivated or discouraged, it always seems to do the trick.
If you’re thinking about starting a passion project or something you’ve always wanted to do, try not to overthink it and just start somewhere. The time will pass anyway, so why not?
Aji