Today marks one month since I started blogging daily. I have stopped and started several times but this time I stuck to my goal and wrote everyday. This feels like an appropriate checkpoint to reflect on my blogging journey so far.

Am I meeting my goals?

I started this blog as a daily commitment to consciously reflect on my routine life experiences and learn something new each day. This remains true till date. And writing daily has helped me to start internalising this.

In my first post, I listed the goals I intended to focus on.

• Write daily
  • I have managed to achieve this over the last month (finally!)
• Each post should be based on a single concrete idea
  • I have largely succeeded in this but there is still room for improvement
• Use constructive feedback to improve on future posts
  • I have not been successful here having shared this blog with only a couple of people. I wanted to establish a routine first, which I have now, so I will start sharing from today.

I plan to keep working on the above three goals but have a few more to add.

• Atleast once a week, write long-form posts about topics that require deliberation.
• Study the style of other well-written blogs and incorporate it into my own writing to maximise the value derivable from it.
• Improve the quality of the content I read, watch and listen to. I have realised the importance of a constant touch with good vocabulary when I couldn’t find the right words to convey my thoughts.

What has worked and what hasn’t?

This is a very important question for me because I can then build on the positive and weed out the negative. Let’s start with the things that have worked.

• Being kind to myself. I have learnt to not spend time in negative self-talk and to be more compassionate when a post doesn’t shape up the way I envisioned. This has been one of the biggest reasons why I have stuck with blogging daily this time.
• No idea is too small. This concept has helped me to write about topics whose essence could be captured in a few words and which I usually feel are not worth mentioning.
• Rainy day blog posts. This is a list of drafts composed of ideas I jot down whenever a new one comes to me. I note down whatever impressions I have at that time and leave it at that. Then on the day when I am having writer’s block, I pick a draft and write it up.

Now for the things that have been detrimental.

• Obsessing over an image or gif to put into every blog post. I realised I was using up time which would be better spent on the content itself.
• Not engaging my mind well during the day. On such days, my posts have lacked depth and clarity.

What have I learnt?

For the past month, atleast once every day, I have been forced to reflect on my life and derive some lesson from it. Putting it down in the written form has cemented valuable thoughts that would otherwise just pass me by as fleeting notions. Writing religiously every day has been the most disciplined thing I have done in recent times.

Have I grown and how? I believe that this process has started me on the journey of personal growth but I am yet to see the real effects of it in the path my life is taking. I have to start consciously applying my learnings in the decisions and choices I make.

Overall, I am proud of what I have accomplished in the last month. And I hope to keep growing and doing better in the coming days.