After spending more than three months on meticulous planning together with careful deliberation, I started writing for the internet on 5th January 2019. Even till today, I could vividly remember the first post that I wrote – Learning Curve in Life. In that post, I elaborated on the quarter life crisis that I faced and how I started this blog to overcome the predicament. That year, I published 52 blog posts in total, or one post each week. In fact, if you have been following my writing journey since the beginning, you may have remembered my blog’s original tagline,

New Post Every Wednesday at 8am.

By and large, that tagline changed my life forever.

The Struggle

In truth, I had zero experience in professional writing. Despite that, I chose to jump straight into the deep blue ocean instead of learning how to float at the baby pool. And even though I have created the nerdiest workflow and task management tracker, I struggled with the most basic task – content creation; blame it on my complete lack of experience.

To illustrate, there was an episode when I was supposed to be on a family vacation. Be that as it may, a tiny blog’s tagline felt like a life’s promise to me. In order to fulfil this promise to a handful number of readers, I worked past 2am in the hotel and crawled out of bed early the next day – just to ensure that I click ‘publish’ before 8am that morning.

Although I had a shaky start, the forceful style of weekly content creation accelerated my growth in an exponential manner. As time goes by, not only do I learn to write better, I also improved my workflow in a way such that I don’t suffer from the same struggle twice.

Lesson One: “Failure is not the opposite of success, it is part of it.” – Ariana Huffington

The Ambition Grew

All in all, I became a more confident writer by the time we ended the year 2019. Riding on that somewhat successful wave, I continued my writing spree in 2020. As readership continued to grow, my personal expectation grew as well. Chiefly, I started to write articles that require me to put in more effort and time.

For example, 2020 was the year when Life Insurance Association Singapore mandated all the insurers to adopt the Version 2019 Critical Illness definitions. Seeing that the public holds varying views and misconceptions on the matter, I decided to write a lengthy blog post to explain each revision and how it may (or may not) affect consumers. That post was undoubtedly one of the most challenging piece of content that I have published so far!

Additionally, with the intent to boost readership, I started a separate Instagram account to share bite-sized content. After all, not everyone has the luxury of time to read through a thousand word article. Given that additional job scope, I roped in my partner to work on the design aspect of the content while I focus on the ideas and execution. Altogether, both platforms complemented each other as we enjoyed the warm reception from the viewers.

The Building of a Downfall

With two years of writing experience for the online audience, I learnt one simple fact. That is, the more content I publish, the higher the tendency for a higher readership. After all, this is simple mathematics. To explain, if publishing one blog post can garner 1,000 views in a single week, then publishing two blog posts should garner 2,000 views in the same week. Blinded by the desire to increase readership, this was what I published for each week in 2020:

1. A fresh blog post;
2. Repurposing an existing blog post;
3. Design and publish a deck of infographics on Instagram; and
4. Send out a weekly newsletter.

Based on the hypothesis that I had earlier, such level of content creation should propel my blog from an unsung status to a somewhat better known status. Given that I have managed to prove my hypothesis each week, I kept up with my cramped editorial calendar in 2020.

Lesson Two: Keep track of your numbers, statistics don’t lie.

The Downfall

Looking back upon how I have worked in 2020, it is akin to blowing air into a balloon, where

Blowing air into the balloon to expand it = creating more content to increase readership

For the most part, one aspect that didn’t change is the balloon’s capacity (which is my capability in this case). Then came one fateful period when a series of incidents took away my mental peace. Since I was unable to focus, I chose not to publish any content at all. This is opposed to publishing an average piece of content (like what I have done during the startup phase). To clarify, I excused myself that given the slightly larger readership base today, I need to uphold a higher standard for the content that I publish. In other words, if a piece of content is not the best work that I can produce, then no one else should see it. Based on that rule, nothing was published for the bulk of 2022. Eventually, I lost my writing momentum and I felt like nothing more than a floater on the internet.

Lesson Three: Don’t try to do too much at one go. Take life at its own pace.

The Restart

Since the time the balloon burst, I have rested for about half a year. As a matter of fact, I must admit that I felt comfortable to rest and to have rested. Notwithstanding that, there is another side of me who don’t wish to give up writing. After all, both my partner and I have devoted so much time and effort into content creation. Additionally, everyone has been so encouraging towards my humble writing journey. Summing up, it would be a huge pity to call it a day.

Now, in order to reset my own expectations to create higher quality content and to regain momentum, I decided to publish this random post with no educational insight to send a message across to myself:

Lesson Four: Stop overthinking. Just do it.

I hope I would overcome my own writing block in due time. Let’s see!