I started blogging inspired by Seth Godin.
His inspiring words deeply fueled my persistence for last several years and helped me to set my moto as “blog no matter what & fight perfectionism”. His advice on blogging has been at the core of what inspired my continued maintenance of Gsstudy.com for last few years as a blog on learning (Even after I discontinued the IAS exam portal which was hosted in the same domain name, 2015 to 2017.).
Link: A great playlist about writing which will inspire you too
Here is the quote that inspired me.
” Blogging is free it doesn’t matter even if anyone reads it. What matters is the humility that comes from writing it. What matters is the metacognition of thinking about what you’re going to say. How do you explain yourself to the few employees or your cat or whoever is going to look at it. How do you force yourself to describe in three paragraphs why you did something.
How do you respond out loud. If you’re good at it, some people are going to read it. If you’re not good at it, and you stick with it, you’ll get good at it”
Video Here
Gsstudy helped me to hide myself and be anonymous, and thus helped me to reduce the pressure of perfectionism(premature exposure). I decided to let go of Gsstudy.com now and continue my blog in johnywrites.com because I think I am ready to associate my identity with my blog.
Looking back, I can identify many positive effects the blogging practice had on me.
First big advantage was that it helped me understand and clarify my calling. I think Gsstudy aided the process of clarification and co-construction of my unique value proposition.
Secondly, It made me think and understand about the need for a niche and a community.
Third one is about the power of Identity, Possession, & Clarity: One thing I have realized was that my possessions and path dependencies actually drove most of my action directions. Gsstudy(my blog) formed part of my possession and path dependency, and it determined the things which I read, websites I surfed and the people I followed on social media for the last several years.
Fourthly, Because I was writing anonymously without sharing on social media, it helped me to reduce inhibition, fear of making mistakes & other bad things that comes with effort to please someone. (Eg. lack of spontaneity)
Finally, I thing, years of running Gsstudy, and blogging helped me to reduce the cognitive load caused by extraneous and non core activity( non blog writing) elements.
JohnyWrites.com 