Failing Forward

What I’ve Learned By Failing To Reach My 30 Day Publishing Goal

I’m exhausted and it’s my own fault.

I’ve been trying to publish everyday. I stumbled here and there a couple times, but managed to make my self-imposed deadline, even on the days where I was hitting publish just before midnight. 

I know that publishing everyday for a couple of weeks isn’t ground breaking in the realm of real writing, but I’m new and I had a 30-day publish-every-day goal. 

Unfortunately, I’ve already failed. 

Or did I?

In the background, there’s a ton going on at home right now. My kids are having graduations and birthdays. My wife had surgery, thankfully it appears to have been successful. I’m trying to publish everyday on top of all of this, and I’ve been having trouble juggling it all.

I have written every day, I just didn’t end up with something I wanted to publish on some of those days.

It seems like the days that I am having the most trouble with my writing are the days when I physically write the most. Maybe my longer articles are a result of my attempt to make an idea better or to try and explain the concept more. It seems like there could be a correlation between these long wandering articles and my inability to finish them. 

If I’ve written a ton and I still don’t feel like the story is coming together, maybe it’s time to walk away?

Perhaps that has been one of the things that I’ve learned. Maybe I can add that to my tool kit moving forward to save me from those write-all-day-and-publish-nothing let downs. 

If I’m writing too much, maybe the idea just isn’t fully baked yet. Maybe the idea isn’t clear enough, even to me. At that point, maybe I’ll just eject early and move on to another idea. I’ll have to try that when I’m in the grips of a post from hell.

Did I reach my goal?

I didn’t last a month. It was 14 or so days of publishing everyday, or at least averaging one per day (a couple times I finished up and published the next morning, then published again that night). 

Then I just hit a freakin’ wall.

I was feeling crispy, burned-out. It felt like I was trying to get blood from a stone. It wasn’t for lack of effort, I just felt like the stuff I was writing was just, meh. I kept trying thinking that eventually I would break through the wall, but I just got more and more frustrated.

What else have I taken away from my short experiment? 

Well, first off, writing can be really hard, especially when you’re trying not to just publish anything for the sake of publishing.

Another thing I learned is that I have to be patient.

Be patient with the process. Be patient with yourself.

This goal was lofty for me: Publish everyday for 30 days. As I said earlier, I’ve already missed a couple of days and I’m already out of the running for that goal. But in the process I’m putting in reps. Growing my skill. Getting better, hopefully.

What did happen though, was that I ended up at least writing everyday. Not only have I written everyday, but I’ve written with the intent to share, which is definitely different. 

I’ve been writing in my personal journal for years as a way to clear my mind. Writing for other people, writing to be useful, feels much different to me. I have to close loose ends and make sure that I’m not just venting into the page. I feel like there needs to be a reason to actually read the article. My goal is to make something that readers can learn from or at least be entertained by.

What I have also learned is that setting goals is still important. I’ve written so much more than I would have if I was just trying to publish a couple of times a week. I am committed to the practice. I don’t know if I can consider myself a real writer, but I have been writing every day and I have been learning.

Perhaps that has been the biggest takeaway. Writing can be hard, but it’s not going to get any easier if you don’t put in the work.

Whatever it is your working on, be patient. It’s not going to come together overnight. If it builds quickly, it can also fall quickly. Slow roll if you want to build a strong lasting foundation.

I know that from other successful pursuits in life. I can’t imagine it would be any different for writing. It always takes way longer than you think it’s going to. Consistency is always way harder than it sounds.

Do The Work. After all, isn’t it the work what you’re after in the first place? Isn’t doing the work an effort to do the work more? To live the in the dream of a life better lived through the pursuit, and hopeful success, of your craft.

Be Patient. Give it the time it needs to grow. You can’t expect your garden to grow if you don’t water it and you don’t give it time and attention. Also, you can fill a bucket one drop at a time, it just takes longer. So buckle up and get on your way. Point is, it’s most likely going to take longer than you think it will or should.

Set Lofty Goals. I’m a new writer, at least in the context of trying to write and publish. I went ahead set a lofty goal for myself. I have the summer off before work picks up again in the fall. If I want to invest the time to work on something like this, now is a good time to do so. So, I did.

I started feeling really burned out though. I wanted to recognize this, because I feel like when you get to the point that you’re feeling burned out, you can’t just push through it. Sometimes you have to take a step back, even if it’s a short break. But be careful not to walk away, at least not if the goal is important to you.

In some ways I’m still trying to publish every day, but I’ve modified it. I’ve made some allowances for days where I just am feeling burned out, like I’m trying too hard and nothing seems to be working. In fact, on those days it feels like sometimes putting more effort in actually makes it worst. 

Maybe on those days, I’ll take a break?

By pursuing other things, I know that taking a break can sometimes lead to a permanent break if not kept in check. So with that in mind. I’ve made the modification that:

I can miss one day, I just can’t miss two in a row.

In other words, if I’m starting to feel cooked, I can take a day off. I feel like it keeps me fresher and actually makes keeping up with writing easier. I still have the consistency, but with some guilt free time baked in to prevent the burn from setting in. 

Like I alluded to earlier, I was trying to write every single day and it started making me miserable. Something had to change. I didn’t want to quit and I knew if I kept blindly pushing, I might.

With this adjustment, I can miss one day. I feel way less stressed and it feels like I have a better chance at consistency. I just can’t miss two days in a row. You wouldn’t believe how much this actually helps.

So that’s the recent adjustment. We’ll see how it works, but I thought I’d share it here in case you’re struggling with something similar.

What adjustment to your work can you make to avoid burnout and promote consistency?

Write it down and give it a shot.

In the meantime, whatever it is that you’re working on … keep going! The world needs to hear your voice. No one lives forever. What are you waiting for?