Why I stopped posting
I haven’t posted to this newsletter since April (other than one post last month).
So about eight months without posting.
Before the recent lull, I’d published 292 posts since starting this newsletter in September 2021. About 10 posts per month.
I’m writing this now because:
I want to start posting again and this post is my way of getting past the mental block that goes something like, “I haven’t posted for a while, so I’m not going to post.”
A lot has happened in my life since April that I haven’t fully processed and writing helps me process.
I haven't stopped writing since April.
But I stopped posting because, well, I have to think about that …
I think what happened is that I became more focused on my business, Break Into Tech Sales, to the point that most of the thoughts in my head were about the business. I was still writing those thoughts, but I felt that they didn’t fit the theme of this newsletter.
I created a new journal in Notion titled “Blog posts about being a solopreneur” and dumped all my business-y thoughts there.
Here’s a screenshot to give you an idea of what I was writing in this journal …
My plan was to eventually launch a separate newsletter or blog more focused on business stuff.
Now, I’m not sure I want to do that.
I’m not as interested in technical business questions (e.g., how to define your target market) as I am in more high-level questions that are tangential to business (e.g., how to align work and life).
The latter category of questions is more consistent with the theme of this newsletter.
All this to say, I’m planning on posting more soon.
I’ll start by working through the backlog of everything I’ve written over the past eight months.
I’m not entirely sure what I’ll be posting about yet, and that’s kinda the point.
Since I started writing 10 years ago, I’ve gotten into the habit of processing things like this:
Have experiences.
Think thoughts and feel feelings.
Write down thoughts and feelings.
Publish writing.
I’ve been doing a lot of 1, 2, and 3 over the past eight months. But I haven’t been doing any of 4.
You might think that there’s no difference between 3 and 4.
4 is just copy-pasting the writing I’ve already done and clicking “publish.”
But I’ve found that getting from 3 to 4 is actually a big step.
I was talking to my friend Lake last month during a trip to Colorado and he said,
“There’s a difference between writing/speaking something to yourself versus speaking to someone else. Because you can lie to yourself, but it’s harder to lie to someone else.”
When I take a piece of writing from my personal archives and go to publish it for others to read, there’s a review process. I ask myself questions like:
Am I telling the truth?
Is that really what happened?
Do I actually think that?
Do I actually feel that way?
What will people think about me when they read this?
Would I stand by this if someone challenges me?
What are some potential rebuttals people would have?
Before I put the writing through this pre-publishing review process, my thoughts and feelings are still chaotic and messy, not fully fleshed out.
Knowing that other people will read it forces me to get more clear. As a result, I gain more clarity internally.
Again, all to say, expect more posts from me soon.