You can’t be good at everything right from the start
On making mistakes and eventually being good at it
Of course, there’s a small chance that you are good at a few things right from the start. That’s what we call “talent.” But you can’t be talented at everything, especially if no one guides you to do something new.
When I began blogging 9 years ago, I knew nothing about the activity. I didn’t know what a “blog” was, didn’t know what WordPress was, and definitely didn’t know that people could read my posts.
I revelled in the new activity, writing random things, and trying out formats and different content. I subscribed to myself to see how the posts would look for others and made changes. Eventually, my posts got better and people subscribed to the blog.
I enjoy exploring new things without help—figuring out what it is, how it works, and how to be good at it. Blogging was my first exploration that lasted several years.
4 years ago, I started writing newsletters and maintaining a “resource library” on my blog. I tied them together. I had no idea what I was doing but I saw another blogger with a similar setup and wanted to try it. It took a while to set everything up and I made many mistakes, but in the end, I had it up and it ran well for years.
For the last few months, I’ve been feeling a little bored. Blogging is still one of my passions but no part of it is “new” to me anymore. I’ve been writing newsletters using Kit (earlier known as Converkit) for 4 years and explored everything I could on it so it’s become old too.
It was time I tried something new. Only, instead of me starting it without letting anyone know, I decided to take my newsletter subscribers with me.
I’ve always wanted to “show my work”, including the initial missteps and confusion. Here’s my first attempt at it!
Substack is very different from Kit. The transfer notification email (when I moved subscriber emails from Kit to Substack) was written on a whim and I didn’t realize that it wouldn’t look proper (I subscribe to myself through another email to catch stuff like this). I should have sent a separate email so that I could see the format and stats. Oh well. That was my first mistake 😂
I’ve actually been thinking about that since yesterday but have been trying to move past it by reassuring myself that I can’t be perfect at this without knowing how it works. Wasn’t that the point of trying something new, anyway?
Sorry to the 500 people who got a random email that doesn’t look right. Hopefully this post looks better. If not, I’ll keep learning and try to make it better.
I’m looking forward to exploring it and seeing what I can do with it. I hope you enjoy watching me learn along the way!
Hello, I am so excited to see what you continue to do! Your writings always make my day when I can read them, and I am glad to see you continue writing. I appreciate learning about your journey!