From:
Austin, TX
Wednesday, 8:59 AM
December 9, 2020
The question I've been asking myself today is…
“Do I want to start a blog?”
My reason is simple.
I want to write more.
How could I going to write more?
Well, I could start writing emails… but with no list, am I really going to be motivated to do that?
I could do more journaling… but then I get no feedback for improvement.
Or…
I could write more by starting a blog.
So I googled some bloggers like Tim Ferris, and also looked up “Should I Start A Blog In 2020?”
Pros and cons aside…
The best “bottom line” answer I found was this:
If you're willing to commit to posting 2-3 times a week for 2-3 years without any monetary compensation, then you should start a blog.
If not, then forget about it.
Coinciding with my thoughts of starting a blog was a realization…
In the past year, 2 years, maybe even 7 years, I really haven't been writing as much as I'd like.
That means my skills as a writer haven't been worked on… and haven't been improved as much as they could've.
That's like throwing one of my greatest skills down the drain.
As the common parlance states…
“If you don't use it, you lose it.”
But the thing is, I have been writing.
Just… not creatively. Not for the fun of it. Not for the sake of expression…
But rather, for monetary means.
I've been honing my copywriting skills, for sure. Heck, I even got a professional copywriting J-O-B this year.
So for the first time in my life, I was accountable for writing 5 times a day, for 5 months.
And although copywriting is not the same as creative writing…
(it's more about research, often a lot of copy/pasting, and structuring ideas in an optimal way for sales)
It's still the most writing I've done for an extended time period since I wrote my first book in 2013.
But it's been 4 months since that job ended, and even with that job there was no expression of what I wanted to talk about.
The amount of creativity I pulled out of me was limited.
Also me:
I've had some PTO (paid time off) these few days, so I've had time to reflect on my life.
I really looked at myself in the mirror… I'm 34 years old, and I'm not nearly making the impact on the world I wanted.
From this reflection, I realized this:
I don't know what I need to do, I just know I need to change. I know I need to do the opposite of what I did in my twenties.
And in my twenties, I had the IDEA to start a blog many times…
Yet, the action would not be there to start.
Or, I would start and get as far as 1-2 weeks, then stop.
Most of the time, I would simply let the distractions of life carry me away, like a leaf in the wind.
Knowing that tendency of my past self, I now know what needs to be done.
A) Starting is easy for me. Follow through is what I need to focus on.
B) I have no problem following through… WHEN I have made a commitment. I need to make a commitment, and I need to be publicly accountable for it.
C) I've let fear and worry stop me from blogging in the past. If I decide NOT to blog… I can't let it be from fears or worries.
Will my content be stolen? Maybe.
Will I get in trouble for my words? Maybe.
Will I become famous one day? Maybe.
Do I want to be famous? Not really.
Am I willing to be in the public spotlight in order to make a bigger impact on the world? Yes.
And hence, this. Blog post #1.
Where will this blog go? No idea.
What will it be about? Anything that will help myself and/or other people. I want to share ideas that NEED to be expressed.
I don't want to talk about things that are already better covered by others, or talked about ad nauseum.
I don't want to write for the search engines, or for the views.
I want this blog to be at least 95% purely for the expression, rather than what I can get out of it (money, fame, etc).
Most likely as of this writing, nobody will read this. It will only be in retrospect, perhaps in 2-3 years, that people will come across this blog post.
I'm okay with that. Because I'm doing it for the right reasons (right for me).
And so, I present to you, Howard Tseng's blog.
P.S.
My goal and commitment is to have 100 blog posts by the end of 2021.
By posting twice a week x 52 weeks, that'll get me to 104 posts…
And at the same time, if I miss a week here or there it's not the end of the world. But at least I have a long-term vision of my output and, most importantly, a structured outlet to compel me to write more.
At the end of the day, “writing more” is what I'm shooting for and these parameters are a means to get there.
P.P.S.
Even though it's not 2021 yet, I'm starting NOW.