On August 13, 2013, I took action toward a vision that I had nurtured for the previous 7 years. That action was hitting the publish button to launch this blog with my first post. You can read it here: Welcome to My Meadow Report.
This is my 1,000th post for this blog.
We’ve come a long way.
As I’ve written before, it’s important to celebrate our wins. High-achievers tend to raise the bar before we get to the bar, and if we don’t stop and celebrate, nothing ever feels like it’s enough.
1,000 blog posts is a big deal. Along the way, I’ve learned a lot about writing and publishing and what it takes to write and publish a blog. I’ll leave most of those insights for another time.
Today, to celebrate this milestone, I want to share my response to the most frequently asked question people ask me about blogging: what it takes to publish a blog.
The ONE Thing You Need To Publish 1,000 Blog Posts
To publish your work, you need only one thing.
Courage.
I realize you might be thinking: don’t you need content?
Yes. Obviously you need to create content. You must create space for a daily writing practice.
This is where many people tend to overcomplicate things. They get obsessed with finding the perfect system for taking and organizing notes and research, creating and cultivating ideas, maintaining track of drafts, and so on.
None of that is necessary. The act of writing is fairly straightforward. In fact, you already write in some form.
The challenge lies in creating space for writing. This is the first place you need courage. It takes courage to claim the space you need for your work, to sit down and put your ideas, thoughts, and insights into words, and to write from your heart.
Whether you choose to overcomplicate the process with systems for organizing information is a different topic. Even if you use all the systems available to create content, that’s not the same as published content.
Writing and publishing are different parts of the process. Even once I started this blog, I wrote many things that I didn’t publish. I still do.
The Bridge Between Writing and Publishing
To bridge the gap between writing and publishing requires courage.
Publishing your work requires that you share your ideas, your insights, and your sentences with the world. You are exposing yourself, allowing yourself to be seen and heard. This can be incredibly rewarding when your work is received well, when people tell you how much your work touched them, that you made an impact.
And it can be difficult when your work is met with criticism, complaint, or ridicule. Or, even worse, when your work is met with crickets — no response whatsoever.
Publishing your work is a gamble. You don’t know how it will be received. Each time you publish something, you step into the mystery of the unknown, the darkness of uncertainty. This requires courage.
How to Cultivate Courage
There’s only one way to cultivate that courage: by publishing your work.
My mission with this blog and all my work is to serve my readers and my clients. I am so grateful to each person who has told me that the work I publish here has helped them, for each reader who has reached out via email or social media, and for each of you who has opted in to join the community and hear more from me. That feedback fuels my courage and motivates me every day to share my insights and experiences so that they can serve you.
I believe that each of us has wisdom to share with the world. Your experiences and insights can serve others. Your voice matters, and the world needs to hear you.
Today, I celebrate 1,000 blog posts. I celebrate the impact of words and wisdom.
And I celebrate the courage of all who dare to be seen in their work.
[…] As I’ve mentioned, writing and publishing are two distinct stages in this process. I’ll address publishing in this post, and writing in a future post. […]