I set a goal at the beginning of 2018 to write and publish a blog post every week.
My blog had been languishing in recent years, though I still enjoyed writing for it. I’d post…occasionally when I had the urge, but mostly I was focused on my fiction.
About this time last year, I became more interested in blogging again. I tried to get a post up every week, and then I publicly announced that I’d do it early in 2018.
I called it an unreachable goal because I didn’t really think I’d get a blog post up every week. But, I did think that it would get me to post more than I had, and I was right.
I posted 22 blog posts in 2018 (not counting announcement-type posts). Not even close to the 52 I had set the goal for, but more than in previous years. (In 2016, I posted on this blog precisely 5 times. 🙂 ) Next year, I think I’ll get closer.
So while I was right about the benefit of this unreachable goal–something else struck me about it too.
It’s also about showing up consistently.
I don’t always know who’s showing up here regularly to read what I’ve written, and I don’t really need to. I’m not always sure that something I’ve written has value for other people, though I strive to do that. But I can always take my best thoughts and ideas at the moment, write them down and publish it to my website. I can show up here regularly and give what I have. That may be more than enough.
Think about some content you like. Have you come to rely on it in a sense? For inspiration, for entertainment, for information? Do you look for it at regular intervals? Are you glad that creator showed up?
A couple of months ago, I heard this idea: that it’s not always what we’re doing but also how we’re doing it. The presence we bring to something, how we make people feel when we’re doing it. In short, showing up with what we have.
Photo by Jacob Campbell on Unsplash
Amanda Linehan is the author of North, about a young woman on the run from her past, the law and an old adversary out to get her. Her newest release is Bored To Death: A Vampire Thriller, about a 300-year-old vampire trying to restore the balance between life and death. She has published five novels. Get a free short story every month when you sign up for her newsletter.
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