Dear Reader,
Starting this blog was daunting. It’s scary putting yourself out there. It’s scary taking a chance on something which has a high probability of failing. I decided to start it because I’ve been emailing one of my closest friends from university (who is very far away from me), we have been writing long emails to each other and talking about our days and things that are going on in our lives. I haven’t written like that in a very long time, I write journal entries here and there but they are short. She likes writing and creative writing is one of her hobbies. I was inspired by that. I enjoyed writing her long (and boring) emails, I looked forward to them. When I was having a bad day I thought, “I’ll respond to her email and I’ll feel better after”. And her responses were even better! When I suddenly got the idea for this blog, I thought why not? Let’s give it a go!
So here I am. It’s been one week since I started this blog. A lot has happened in between. Even though it is just the first week, I started feeling a lot of pressure. I need to promote my blog more. I need to get on Pinterest. I need to get more followers on Twitter. I need to post more on Instagram. I felt overwhelmed: how the hell am I going to get this off the ground? I’m not talking about monetising: I am just talking about readers! I don’t know why I expected some readers to just show up. But I’ve been screaming into the void (except for the few people I have told about this blog).
Today I just realised I need to cool it. This was supposed to be a side project for fun. It’s not a “side hustle” (I absolutely loathe that term), it’s a hobby. I shouldn’t be doing this if it’s adding another stressor in my life?! God knows I have enough of those! I have an SEO tool installed that gives me a percentage and tells me what I need to add to make the blog more “Google searchable” or whatever (clearly I haven’t learned anything). I am ignoring it, because I just want to write what I’m feeling. I want to share my experiences and enjoy myself and be myself. That feels much better.
ACTION: What goal are you excited about and what’s your next step towards it?
This was easy. My goal is to blog my 10-day challenge. That’s it. Consistency is hard for me, so I feel like if I can do this it means I can probably do this if I really want to. It’s hard to stay motivated, my procrastination causes me a lot of trouble. I draft my blogs in the evenings which is also TV time so it is much slower than if I just did it earlier. I’m going to have to fix this problem with work otherwise it will be hard for me to write and make time for other things.
Sometimes it is hard for me to look forward to things. As I described in yesterday’s post, I tend to feel stuck. After getting married and falling into a routine I, to my surprise, started feeling panicked sometimes. This is it, this is life, it’s just this routine. This isn’t the right way for a Muslim to think, of course. There is a lot more to life, but in the last few years, I have lost my connection to religion. I used to be a lot less attached to worldly things. Now I am so attached. I am afraid of losing my job, I am afraid of losing my husband, I am afraid of losing my things. I can’t see past the trappings of life. I’m worse off because of it.
This is a good goal for me to work towards. I think this is also why I started this blog; I wanted to spend my time doing something I was passionate about. I get very excited when I think about it, all the possibilities, all the content I want to produce and all the people I will meet. I just hope I remember this and keep going. I need to look forward.
Until next time,
Amna
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