60 Days On Medium: My Results
I’ll never forget the words my Mom said to me when I declared sustainable development and sustainable technology as my major in college: “I always thought you’d be an English major, why are you doing this?” Spoiler Alert: I’ll most likely never use my degree. I enjoyed what I learned, but that wouldn’t be playing to my strengths, would it?
I’ve been writing for the majority of my life. It started with short stories, then moved on Naruto fanfiction (don’t judge, weeb life), lyrics for my attempt at one day being a famous rock star, and finally I ended up here on Medium writing about self-improvement.
I decided that I wanted to dive head-first into the world of blogging, and I’d toyed around on the Medium platform in different niche’s. I gained a few followers, and I was able to put out content on an inconsistent schedule, so at the beginning of 2022 I did what was necessary to make this a regular part of my life.
I deleted all of my work, and set the goal to post 60 articles in 60 days. I didn’t hit that goal, but I learned a lot through this experiment.
Today I’m here to share my my results, and an exercise you can use to get on track to being the best version of yourself.
Quality and Quantity Are Equally Important:
There are two key lessons I learned in this category.
- Don’t sacrifice quality for the sake of quantity, but don’t put out bad work for the sake of putting out work.
- Perfection gets in the way of good enough, but make sure it’s “good enough” before putting it out into the world.
I’m not expert, but I believe there’s something to these statements.
Of course the long-term goal is to turn blogging into a real stream of revenue, but that isn’t possible if I don’t put out content. The problem is, when trying to pump out that much content I reached a point of complete burnout.
At the beginning of the experiment the quality of my work fell into the “good-enough” category; however, by the end of the two week mark I found myself completely burnt out, and releasing content for the sake of it. I believe in providing value, and when my work falls short of what I’m capable of producing I feel like I’m wasting my viewers time.
Let’s refer back to that second statement: perfection gets in the way of good enough.
There’s a balance between quality and quantity. If I’m putting out bad content there’s no point in creating content, but if I’m focusing too much on making every piece of content perfect I will never be able to release content.
I’ve always been a perfectionist, and that always led me to missing deadlines, neglecting other non-negotiables in my life, and eventually burning out to the point of completely removing content creation from my daily routine.
My new rule is only requiring my content to be 75% of what I would deem perfect. This rule has created a strong balance between the amount of work I put into each piece of content, but leaves me enough room to just hit upload.
There’s nothing wrong with striving for perfect, but accepting nothing less sometimes means never taking any meaningful action towards our goals.
Failure Is More Important Than Success:
We’re all taught that failure is unacceptable from an early age, but as Einstein once said, “Failure is success in progress.”
No one likes to fail, but we are measured on what we do when we fall short, not what we do when we are successful.
I wrestled with a fear of failure for most of my life, but this experiment reinforced that principle in my own life.
These are the realizations from failing to hit the mark during this experiment:
- Failing at this experiment showed me all of the flaws in my writing. It’s been 10 years since I gave up writing as a regular part of my life, and this skill is definitely not like riding a bike.
- I got a better idea of what type of content flows naturally for me, and what feels forced. I like writing about self-improvement, technology, productivity, and how to live a happier life, and this showed me which community I belonged to.
- Suffering from writer’s block during the experiment showed me which topics were not a good fit for me. I couldn’t force out content for the sake of it, and I eventually realized I didn’t have enough ideas to complete the full 60 day experiment. This “failure” has helped me develop a more efficient approach to idea forming, development, and execution.
Sure, it would have felt great to reach that goal, but I’ve found the motivation to rethink my entire creation system to better suit my style.
My Process Moving Forward:
This experiment pointed out the flaws in my approach to creation, and through this bump in the road I’ve realized where my energy needs to be spent to put myself in a position to achieve my long-term goals.
These are the steps I’m taking to make that happen.
- I don’t have goals going forward, I just want to write. If I can post an article every week I will be happy, but I’m not focusing on anything past getting the next piece out. I’ve learned that being action oriented is better than outcome oriented, and part of me was more focused on writing 60 articles than the actual process of writing.
- I want to spend an equal amount of time on Youtube as I do on Medium. I only have so much effort to give in my life, and trying to do more than capable on one platform means stealing energy from another.
- Focusing on other platforms alongside Medium: Youtube, Instagram, and Twitter. I want to find my community, build an ecosystem, and enjoy the process. I love learning, and creating content has given me the opportunity to dive into a sea of knowledge I haven’t seen previously. With the help of my friend, and resident social media expert, Bailee, I think we can make that happen.
Try This Exercise:
Get Out A Piece of Paper and Write Down The Following Questions:
- What Are My Long Term Goals?
- What Actions Can I Take To Get There?
- Make Two Columns, and label them as “things I can control,” and “things I can’t control.”
Here Were My Answers:
- Build up my Youtube and Medium audiences, start another business, build a successful workout schedule, and continue to grow spiritually.
- Post on Youtube and Medium once per week, make a business plan and research the industries I’m interested in entering, make time to exercise at least 4 days per week, and schedule time for meetings and Bible study.
Come back with your answers, post them in the comments below, or keep them to yourself. No matter where they are, refer back to them to remind yourself where you want to go, and what you’re doing to get there.
Thank you for reading! Here are a few articles you may find helpful!
- Why You Can’t Stop Procrastination: t.ly/XvuK
- How To Be Successful At Anything: t.ly/thEk
- What I Learned in 30 Days of Meditation: t.ly/aX1F
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