No Views, No Problem!

Both my stories have zero reads so far, but I’m undeterred and happy. Here are 5 reasons why:...

1. I’m having so much fun writing.

Since I decided to sign up for Vocal Media, I have been absolutely bursting with energy and ideas. In fact, I feel more energetic and motivated than I have in years. I have delighted in the experience of brainstorming compelling story ideas, and the experience of crafting my thoughts into polished and cohesive articles.

I've kept a journal for nearly 10 years, but it's not the same. In my journal, I primarily write about what I did each day, especially memories I want to look back on later, as well as any random thoughts I have that I feel like writing down. That's great, but it's just as good, or possibly better?? (we'll see how I feel in 9 years), to write more polished pieces that are actually about a specific topic and have an organized structure and purpose. Even just the fact that people could read these posts makes it feel like I'm sharing my thoughts with someone else who is interested. I envision hypothetical future readers who love my work, and the thought of them brings me joy even though they don't exist yet.

2. I refuse to feel bad about myself or be pessimistic.

My new policy in life! I used to constantly doubt myself, feel bad about myself, worry that I wouldn’t be able to achieve my dreams, believe I was "doomed" to failure (I loved the word "doomed"...), and just generally feel bad and stressed all the time. Now that I’m essentially recovered from my previous years of severe depression, I’ve fully embraced a growth mindset and simply refuse to doubt myself! Sure, I may not have fully developed my skills or achieved success yet, but as long as I keep working, learning, and strategizing about how to improve, I will get there in the future. If anyone can do it, I know that I can do it too. I do sometimes still experience times of doubt and bad self-esteem, but I fight against them (and win!). I haven't actually felt pessimistic or bad about my Vocal Media progress yet, but if I do, I know I'll be able to overcome it and keep going because I've overcome much worse before.

3. I enjoy trying to overcome challenges. I love problem-solving activities. Now, to get to my goal of success at writing for an audience, I’m problem-solving about how I can improve my writing pieces and how I can entice people to read them. It’s a fun challenge.

I also highly value being persistent and not giving up when things get hard, so I'm really happy with myself whenever I'm able to persist past a challenge. This gives me an opportunity for that, so yay :).

(Note to past me and anyone similar: Even if you have "given up" on something important to you, don't feel bad about it!! As long as you're alive, you can un-give up and start going for your dreams again. And even if you un-give up and then re-give up multiple times, that doesn't mean you're doomed. You can always un-give up again.)

4. This is teaching me to appreciate EVERY. SINGLE. VIEW. I get in the future. When I decided to start posting on Vocal Media, I thought I was going in with reasonable expectations. I expected to only get a small handful of views (maybe 2-5) on each of my first pieces before I was able to build up an audience. Welllll….. it turns out that was very overly optimistic! So far, I’ve posted 2 stories and I haven’t gotten even ONE single read on either of them. This really shows me how difficult it is to get even one person to read your stories, so I know I’ll be more appreciative about EVERY SINGLE ONE of my readers in the future.

5. Bonus: This experience gave me the idea for this post :) Hopefully someone will want to read it, but if not, that’s okay too. I've already had a great time writing it.

How are your posts doing and how do you feel about it? Please comment below-- I'd love to chat!

P.s. for anyone struggling with self-doubt, I highly recommend Beyond Possible by Nims Purja. This book truly changed my life.