Lessons Learned After One Year Of Blogging
I started this blog one year ago because I was fed up with the mindset of my generation.
Everywhere I looked, I would see my contemporaries reaching for the quick fix, or as I call it - the style - with complete neglect for substance. It was clear that this was the source of everyone's unhappiness, including those near and dear to my heart.
What wasn't clear, however, was that I was being propelled by something far more powerful than frustration. What emerged from my writing was a deeper purpose - to explore, live, and share my journey towards unconditional well-being.
You see, we're all ultimately searching for the same thing - inner peace, love, joy, enthusiasm, creativity, playfulness, spontaneity, and kindness. It's just that the vast majority of us go about this the wrong way by trying to get the people, places, and things around us to unfold exactly as we want, so that those positive feelings are triggered within us. The result is nearly 8 billion people with competing wants, desires, and preferences, all showing up trying to get something from life.
My whole exploration is to uncover the source of those feelings within so I can learn to experience them regardless of what's going on around me.
To me, this is the most important quest of all time.
All that we deem as worldly problems - inequality, poverty, racism, corruption, war, climate change, and our own unhappiness - are really just consequences of not being okay as individuals.
When we're okay, we feel complete, so we're no longer looking to get something from life. And when we're not looking to get anything, all we can do is give. All we can do is serve our fellow brothers and sisters.
This blog is my journey of learning how to be okay.
Below are eight of the most impactful lessons I've learned so far. Perhaps you'll find them valuable in your own life.
1. Trust the power of momentum
When starting a new endeavor, aim for consistency, not perfection. I can't tell you how many times I didn't take the first step out of fear of things not being perfect. I specifically had that fear one year ago before starting this blog, only this time I was aware of the pattern. I was tired of giving into fear, only for time to pass and regret to set in.
If you're on the fence about starting something new, putting yourself out there, or taking a risk, my suggestion is to first focus on momentum, and intentionally block out the rest. Do not even think about what things could, or should look like in a year. Your only focus should be to do something small every day until not doing it becomes uncomfortable.
The only reason you're reading this now is because I focused on writing and publishing a new blog post every single day for three months until I built up the habit. Had I been crippled by perfection, I would've never started, and I'd probably be regretting it today.
2. You are not your mind
Perhaps the biggest realization on this journey is that I am not my mind, or my thoughts. What's more, I don't have to believe my thoughts. For someone with anxious tendencies, this has been tremendously liberating for me over the past year. The voice in my head that never shuts up - you know what I'm talking about - that's not me. I'm the one who hears it. The same goes for your