Have you noticed that when we miss a workout one week, or haven’t written our newsletter for two, or even totally forgot to post on LinkedIn… It gets SOO much harder to restart than to keep a regular (but sustainable) cadence?
Earlier this year, when I restarted the weekly practice of writing this newsletter after pausing for two months I had more self-doubt than a newbie hitting publish for the first time.
My inner monologue went something like this:
I just had a life changing personal experience, do I just program-as-usual my way out of this silence? Who even cares? OH NO I think I need a splashy announcement. I CAN’T just do a splashy announcement while dyiiing inside. Fake it till you make it? DEAL.
Writing the newsletter the usual way felt so… Phony? Like when you say you’re okay but deep inside you just want to fake a Wi-Fi outage and never reconnect to the internet ever again.
But I love the internet and what it has enabled me so far.
So there was only one genuine thing I could think about to restart my conversation with you guys: Vulnerability. And proceeded to send the most scary post yet. I even asked several people if I should REALLY post this. No one said absolutely NOT, so I guess that was permission enough for me to overshare.
I do not regret sending it. Because it taught me some valuable lessons about Keeping Momentum.
I. Ask what the opposite of a cringy situation would look like
I feel like this has got to be some coaching mechanism that I am paraphrasing here, but it really works to get back on track. I asked myself what is the opposite of a cringe, forced ‘welcome back’ announcement and settled on vulnerability.
The opposite of carelessness is going through the pain to write the damn thing.
II. Consistency doesn’t amount for sh*t when you are grieving or in distress.
There. I said it. Don’t be consistent if you can’t get a grip on your life.
The most important reason being mental health (duh), but a close second is that it reflects in your content. You cannot be your weird, humorous self. Content feels heavy when it should feel light and even fun (more on that, keep reading).
Is it better not to post at all than to post? Great question. I am no content guru but I do know that your superfans will notice the nuance. Evaluate for yourself if pushing on content still moves the needle or if you allow yourself a break (I chose the latter because I don’t rely on my content for income at this stage).
III. There is a fine line between vulnerability and oversharing.
Research professor Brené Brown puts it like this:
“Vulnerability is not oversharing, it's sharing with people who have earned the right to hear our stories and our experiences. Vulnerability is not weakness; it's our greatest measure of courage.”
I don’t want to trauma dump everything in this newsletter, and I think I have done a pretty decent job at that (I do have what was I thinking regret moments in my personal life but that is a problem for another edition. Self editing is a highly underrated skill).
And when I do feel first AND second hand embarrassment of something I wrote? I just think of shots on goal and how it would be so much more painful not to try.
IV. Content should be fun.
There we have this business-foreign word again: fun!
Having fun is trendy again in the creator world. Justin Welsh wrote how having fun is the new moat, challenging us wherever the we would build the thing anyway even if nobody paid us (way ahead of you Justin, been doing this for 44 editions unpaid). Deya is encouraging us on YouTube to pursue side quests to explore potential business ideas in a low-stakes and fun framing (I LIVE for side quests). And Jessi Jean is building an entire movement on Instagram (and million dollar business) based on vibes, energy and the psychology of content delivery.
Having fun is highly addictive. Having fun keeps your posting rythm alive. I hope that occasionally, you feel that through the screen.
V. In physics, we don’t say I lost momentum…
…"I lost momentum" implies passivity, like it just happened to you. The physics-accurate version is: a force acted on you and stopped you.
And now, you have to fight against Static Friction.
Physicists like to simplify things with objects, so I am going to explain the concept loosely here. Imagine you see a funny reel on instagram and want to show it to your best friend, sitting across the table. You put the phone down on the surface and push it towards the other person. In perfect conditions, the phone requires more force to start sliding than to keep sliding.
We say "I lost momentum" like it’s a personal failing. But the reframe I am going to leave you with is this: once you come to a full stop, you now need disproportionately more force to get moving again. (for different psychological reasons, too, but now you can blame it on the laws of physics 🤷🏼♀️).
This edition is oddly Brene Brown themed, so I am going to leave you with one of my favourite quotes I learned through her (and I almost included in my PhD thesis):
“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming,(...) who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly”
It feels good (who am I kidding, scary) to be back in the arena.
PS. I need your help! I am currently co-writing an article about engineering your own luck. Do you have a recent (and positive) example where you thought: “WHO DOES THIS! THE AUDACITY”…you could share with me? Reply directly to this email if you do, thanks!
YOU CAN JUST DO THINGS
On rare ocasions I preorder books, no questions asked. (I am always excited for recomendations, write mee back).
I discovered Cate Hall thanks to a happy accident Substack scroll. Turns out, I now have a preetey great algorithm going on which sends me towards substancial writing instead of grow on Substack content.
Anyway, they work falls in line with an article on increasing your luck surface area that I am cowriting with a creator friend. I also want to explore the topics of personal agency a little bit deeper.
If you like their substack, go support an author.
Keep up the audacity,
Laura
