This is to you, Mr Blogger.

No these are not my hands.

Lately I have been reaching out to other bloggers and writers to publish my posts.

Why? It is important to question everything you do, to gain deeper insight. So let's do it.

Am I reaching out because I want validation to what I am doing is right? Who deems what is right and what is wrong? Am I asking influencers because I want to be noticed? Why do I care?

You can see that some of these questions can be questions of doubt. That's not what this is about. Maybe along the way I somewhere got lost and redirected my intentions. That is ok, nothing wrong there.

It is never linear reaching what you ultimately set out to accomplish. It will look something like this.

So why? Why do I care about being noticed by others, to get praised for the work I am doing? Is it to inflate the ego to keep delivering? I think there are two answers to these questions.

1. Yes it is for selfish reasons. I, like most people, love to get approval, and to be socially accepted. It raises serotonin and dopamine levels when noticing the impact it has on others. Bottom line is it makes me feel good.

2. It is for selfless reasons. To be able to add value to people who have not heard or do not know anything about the subjects I cover. It is to bring insight and awareness to things that matter. To those who like to think critically, this is for you.

When I am reaching out to these prominent bloggers I do not know which article to have them publish of mine, am I worried that my work is crap? Possibly, another reason is the fear of not knowing which article will appeal to their audience and to get a negative response from it all.

If I am liked what will that look like and what will that do for me? I think it will do great things and bad things. The great things are that I will be able to spread my message to a wider audience. The bad things are that it could potentially divert me into being someone who won't have time for the people who matter.

As Gary Vaynerchuk put it, "be grateful for the few people who are paying attention to you now, and who are loyal followers, because when the community grows it will be much harder to have those intimate moments with those follower." 

What is the worst that can happen if I am not noticed? That I did it all for nothing? Wrong!

Valuable lessons from Gary Vaynerchuk. It takes time, nothing happens overnight, best is to love what you are doing and keep doing it over and over and over again until you become really good at it. As Cal Newport puts it "So good that they can't ignore you" yes that is a line from comedian Steven Martin.

Also I need to remind myself, and this might contradict the top paragraph, just because I love doing something doesn't necessarily make me good at doing it.

I believe I already surpassed the worst that can happen and that is learning and taking away nothing from this experience. Everyday I learn more.

When I get to day 365 on my posts will it all be over, and I will go back to being who I was? No.

I will have gained more insight as to who I was in the process of writing and sharing my thoughts and feelings with all of you.

What is important is to know where you want to end up and to continue to commit to that goal. What happens in between will constantly vary.

Don't forget the larger you grow the more chances of running across people who will absolutely hate your work, and that is ok, I am ready for the cynics. This is not for everyone. More on this another time.

When I go to the gym I don't do it to be bigger than everyone else, I do it for my physical and mental health. Same goes as to why I eat healthy, it is not to be healthier than everyone else. This is the same reason why I am writing these posts daily, it is not to be the best blogger, among many other attribute it is for my self reflection and my writing skills.

Originally for this post I wanted to write about how you should not rely on one thing and always have a backup plan. I guess my backup plan is writing for myself and not relying to write it for everyone else.

Thank you for taking the time to read this post. To be continued....

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