21 revelations to 200th Blog

I had completed and posted my 150th blog on 25th July 2020 ( a day before my birthday). That day my wife threw the gauntlet, “Why don’t you get to the 200th blog before our anniversary?” I accepted that challenge and the rest as they say is history. What was more fascinating was my discovery during this journey? I came across different writers, books, quotes from movies, life experiences, and micro habit changes. The question I was asking was what If I fail to achieve my goal of the 200th blog before 24th April? So the question I asked myself was, What did the last 50 blogs do to you? I thought it was an intriguing question for me to answer. Even a week back, I was not seeing that 200th blog happening.

There are a set of people who have influenced me on the way, apart from my wife. David Perrel is one person whom I have discovered on the way, Naval Ravikant was another inspiration for my last blog and a host of podcasters who provided me with a meaningful dose of information during the morning and weekends to hustle. I had always thought about serendipity and that is when serendipitously a podcast and a youtube video came along when I was in search of ideas. I think it is called the reticular activation system, you will see all red cars if you are planning to buy one. Slowly, brick by brick I started reaching 200 on the way. I started getting fascinated with Seth Godin’s advice

I liked this line that he mentioned in his blog below

The biggest takeaway for anyone seeking to write is this: don’t go looking for the way other authors do their work. You won’t find many who are consistent enough to copy, and there are enough variations in approach that it’s obvious that it’s not like hitting home runs or swinging a golf club. There isn’t a standard approach, there’s only what works for you (and what doesn’t). In the words, my late friend Isaac Asimov shared with Carl Sagan, “You are my idea of a good writer because you have an unmannered style, and when I read what you write, I hear you talking.”The process advice that makes sense to me is to write. Constantly. At length. Often. Don’t publish everything you write, but the more you write, the more you have to choose from.

I was checking how many drafts I have written to get to 200 Blogs. I noticed that I had 104 blog drafts that did not make the cut. I must also credit my seat, my book, my system, my room (see below photo) for giving that environment for blogging. At the core, I had to build only one belief as told by Seth Godin, ” You don’t get inspired to write, You get inspired because you are writing.”

My 21 revelations on this journey from 150 to 200

1. The dynamic process of meeting deadlines every week with iron clad discipline
2. Improving language by reading more books and articles, having more podcasts and audiobooks, and thereby improving my writing
3. Consciously adding new words to my repertoire so that I was telling myself an empowering story
4. Not writing to impress but to express an attitude
5. Candid sharing and authentic articulation is the key
6. Innovation through the connection of multiple stories which I enjoyed doing with my microstories
7. Taking inspiration from quotes and observing life’s brighter side of things
8. Realizing that the hard thing about the hard thing is to take it head-on
9. My interest in one-liners made me keep writing one-liners which put me in a flow state
10. I found ways to use new words and new quotes that I picked up in my blogs in the right context
11. Be decisive Know what to keep and what to leave
12. Deal with Uncertainty and inadequacy
13. My key influencer for ideas was Naval Ravikant through Naval’s podcast
14. My key influencer on discipline was Seth Godin especially his book ” Practice”
15. I’ve realized how observing things have helped me with ideas, for eg: the Maid incident
16. “Why do you blog” was a question that made me look at my unapologetic self and deal with my lesser self.
17. I was amazed at how deadlines make you push the limits.
18. If you want something badly enough you will have it.
19. He who knows enough is RICH is a quote that drove me
20. The test for me was to trust myself in this journey
21. The three maxims that got me here are “Don’t Quit”(I have a poster which says that and it inspires me to keep going), post-its that tell me to ABC ( Apply Butt to chair) and GOYA ( Get off your ass) made me stick to this goal.

The universe is rigged in such a way that if you want one thing and you focus: ” you will get it but everything else you gotta let go of“. I had to let go of many things on the way to get to this 200th blog.

My stand-out learning from the above 21 revelations was that every step compounded to reach the final goal