Commitment to myself
I’m making a public commitment to myself, to publish blog posts more frequently going forward. The main reason for this commitment is to ensure that I make some time to reflect on my experiences, particular topics of interest, or perhaps, conduct and document minor research in emerging fields or trends. Furthermore, I have set a current target of one blog post per month although I might be inclined to publish more posts depending on my time availability and inspirational level. I intend writing about my experiences (both personal & professional), and my interests (ex: Indie Hacking, Sustainable development, AI, and FinTech).
For a while now, I have wanted to try journaling regularly, having been introduced first-hand to some of the benefits during my foundational year at Lancaster ISC. Unfortunately however, I haven’t been able to make time for it, between work, professional exams, e-learnings and my myriad of side-projects. At least, that’s the excuse I initially told myself to justify why I couldn’t blog regularly. But when something is important enough, you’ll make time for it. The below are therefore, my reasons for wanting to write more (aka; the list of reasons that made writing regularly, important enough to me, to make time for).
Reasons for wanting to write regularly:
Achieve clarity of thought by untangling the spaghetti and abstract ideas in my head
I recently discovered, that some people have an internal narrative or dialogue when they think while others don’t. Although the source of this discovery wasn’t an in-depth scientific research, it seemed to have some merit as readers reacted by claiming to be either one or the other. As for me, my thoughts are generally in abstract non-verbal form and to communicate these, I need to make a conscious effort to verbalise them. They can be broad, encompassing and mangled. I believe attempting to write these thoughts will force me to tidy up my thinking, and capture them in a cohesive manner, thereby helping me achieve more clarity of thoughts. This could in turn translate into me being a better communicator or having an improved understanding of a topic or subject.
Become a better communicator
As a consultant and aspiring entrepreneur, having top notch communication skills (in both speaking and writing), is invaluable. As such, it is important that I continually spend time honing this. Writing my thoughts out here first, would not only allow me to better communicate these in written form, but also enable me to be more articulate when speaking about them. Neil deGrasse Tyson, an American astrophysicist, acclaimed for being an excellent articulate communicator, swears by this, having said in an interview that everything he’s spoken or said, he had written before.
I once asked Neil deGrasse Tyson how he speaks so beautifully.
— David Perell (@david_perell) August 23, 2021
His answer: Write all the time and talk about the things you've already written. pic.twitter.com/94TWUxJRPM
Gain a better understanding of various topics of interests
As mentioned earlier, I intend writing about topics I am interested in. These topics could range from emerging technologies to social issues. For more serious topics, I would be applying some of my academic research skills from university to ensure that I don’t end up spouting nonsense, and that the views expressed are informed to a certain degree. I hope to in doing so, supplement my knowledge in these fields.
Remind my future-self of who I am today
As a firm embracer of the growth mindset, committing myself to always learning and growing, it’d be nice to occasionally go back in time to see who I am today and see whether some of my views have changed. Journaling might be the closest thing to having my future-self, time-travel to the past to speak to my current self. Hopefully, he wouldn’t cringe too much at the person I am today.
Showcase my thoughts
My final reason for wanting to write/blog regularly is to showcase my thoughts via a medium that is easily accessible to interested parties. Although I am mainly doing this for myself, as the projected audience for this blog is quite small (or even more realistically, non-existent), it is still nice to have a corner on the internet where people can go to read about my thoughts. If the thoughts are good enough, they could perhaps start a conversation, inspire a folk or two, or even spread empathy.