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If you think you're not a good writer and if that is keeping you away from writing on the internet this is the most important article you'll ever read.
I'm gonna share with you how journaling every day made me a better writer, gave me the confidence to start writing online, and helped me grow an audience. (And how it can do the same to you).
Here is a short story:
I don't know a thing about writing.
I have never written anything on my own in my whole life.
But in early 2023, I stumbled upon something called journaling.
That's when everything started to change.
I know my writing sucks. And I didn't have a pinch of confidence to write on the internet.
But journaling seemed easy.
Because it is personal. I'm not gonna share what I write with anyone.
It is private to me and no one can ever read my journal.
This means I can write stupid stuff, I can make grammatical mistakes, I can scribble, and I can write down weird thoughts.
In short, I can write literally whatever is on my mind. I don't have to worry about what other people will think.
That's what got me excited and so I decided to journal every single day before going to sleep.
I loved it SO much that sometimes, I overdid it.
Do you know what happened after 2 months of consistent journaling?
My writing got better.
I felt confident in my writing.
I thought, "Man, even I can write on the internet".
During this period, I was already reading articles on Medium.
So, I decided to start writing on Medium. I started to write about habits and self-improvement.
In mid-2023, I published my first article. (In fact, I published something on the internet for the first time in my life.)
Every 5 minutes I used to check if anyone had clapped or commented on my article. (Rookie me!)
But nothing happened.
Then published my second article.
Just the sound of crickets in the wind — puhhh, a quiet breeze.
Then my third. Still nothing.
Then fourth. Still nothing.
Then I quit.
Yes, you read that right. I quit.
I deleted my 4 articles and I deleted my Medium account.
And I thought to myself, "Maybe writing is not my thing."
After that, I didn't write anything in 2023. But I was journaling every day (because I loved it!).
On the 2024 New Year's Eve, I made a resolution: I'm gonna write 1 article every day for 365 days in 2024.
At that time, I was learning Data Science and Machine Learning and was really good at it. I was also very much interested in self-improvement.
So, I decided to write about ML and self-improvement.
I broke my New Year's Resolution in a day😁😉.
I wrote an article on Jan 1 and didn't write anything for the next 10 days.
Then on Jan 11, I got serious and started to write consistently again.
I managed to publish 14 articles in January.
February is even worse. I only published 3 articles. (Lazy me!)
But everything changed in March.
In March I really got fed up with my indiscipline and inconsistency. So, I decided to take on a 30-day challenge.
The challenge was to do 1 machine learning project every day and write an article about that project on Medium.
I successfully completed the challenge.
I did 30 ML projects and wrote 30 ML articles on Medium.
Only a few people cared about my challenge in March.
But in April and May. My challenge started to attract eyeballs.
So many people started to read my articles, and I was gaining between 50 to 100 followers every day during this period.
This is when I understood the power of consistency.
After seeing live what being consistent can do for me. It became really easy for me to stay consistent.
Now, writing is like brushing to me. I do it every day.
Here is what I want you to take away from my story:
- If you're not confident enough to start writing on the internet. Start writing for yourself. Start journaling every day. Once you start journaling your writing will get better and you'll gain the confidence you need to start writing on the internet.
- Keep in mind that nothing happens in a day. Don't expect quick results. As I always say…
- Consistency is LITERALLY the key to achieving anything in life.
- Make writing every day your daily habit like brushing your teeth.
I just shared with you how journaling helped me to become a better writer. However, I haven't shared the other mind-blowing benefits that I got from journaling.
I'll write about that tomorrow.
Stay tuned.
P.S. Journal Tonight