Getting Personal
Some thoughts on how this Substack thing is going (+ my Xmas tree)
As I write this, I’m sitting on my rearranged living room furniture, looking at our newly decorated Christmas tree.
It isn’t a perfect tree, by any means. Upon bringing it home today, we realized it’s a bit crooked and therefore looks off center in the stand.
We also ran out of lights, I think because we got a taller tree than I’ve gotten in years past. Upon leaving the house I saw the top of the tree through the front porch window and spotted a naked spot I hadn't seen previously.
I couldn’t help but notice, as we jogged around the neighborhood this afternoon, Christmas trees shining through many houses’ windows and how full of lights they looked. Maybe we should get more lights, I thought to myself.
But I was anxious to finish decorating the tree, whether there were “enough” lights or not. So I pushed on, adding the garland, the ornaments, and my boyfriend a makeshift tree topper.
And now here I sit, gazing at it while I type this and feeling happy and cozy just looking at it. It turns out it’s just perfectly imperfect.
It’s not lost on me that I’m treating my tree the same way I sometimes treat myself—comparing it to others, criticizing what’s missing, nitpicking it.
Since I’ve started on this Substack journey a few months ago, I’ve tried hard not to play that compare-and-critique game, because I know that’s the quickest way to kill any creativity or writing confidence I might be building.
Yesterday I was reflecting on how my writing has been going and happened to come across this post from a fellow new Substacker that helped me reflect in a different way.
What’s compelled me to want to write for a long time now is the promise of finding my voice and getting to know myself on a deeper level. Of course I want readers and external validation that my voice is reaching someone, rather than just writing out into the abyss.
But I think I’m realizing right now that perhaps I’ve allowed perfection to get in the way a bit.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m always going to reread and edit my drafts before posting them. But instead of over engineering and drafting them across multiple sittings, what would happen if I got a little more honest, a little more messy? A little more, well, unpolished?
Since I started my own Substack, I have found myself paying attention to more Substack authors, reading tips & tricks, etc. There’s a marketer in me, after all—just yesterday morning I was buzzing on content strategy ideas and how to reformat this newsletter to make it easier for me to write, more attractive to potential readers, etc.
All that stuff gets me excited, especially that creative soul (hi, sprinkles!), so I think it’s worth jotting ideas down as I have them.
Then hours later, I came across the aforementioned post and it reminded me of that other (usually more dominant) part of my brain that’s been thinking this whole time, now now, we can’t get too far ahead of ourselves. This part that’s always thought, when it comes to writing, “if you build it they will come.” Meaning, if I just put my authentic self out there, it will find a way.
Where’s the balance?
I see you, meaning-making brain who’s daring to dream and get excited about the potential of something down the road. Someone who dares take herself and her creative interests seriously.
And I see you, logical, protective brain who wants to write regularly but is also perhaps a little bit afraid of being too open on the internet for fear of the “what ifs” and judgments.
What if I write about my office culture and my coworkers see it down the road, should I start to share this more widely? What if I write about friendship, a topic that’s been weighing heavily on my mind this year, and accidentally offend someone? What if I get something wrong when exploring these complicated topics around consumption?
What if, what if, what if?
My therapist taught me an exercise way back earlier this year. When caught in a spiral of worrying, she coached me to ask myself, what’s the best case scenario instead of the worst?
What if I write about office culture, a coworker sees it down the road, and it turns out they are thinking the same thing and we connect on a deeper level? What if I write about friendship and it helps aid in future conversations with my friends, or enables me to make a new online friend? What if, in trying to authentically explore consumption, I stumble a bit but learn new things?
That’s the power of the internet, after all. The ability to connect with strangers over something beautiful, some shared values or thinking with people we’ve never met, yet when we read their words we feel instantly drawn to them.
So I think, on that note, I’m going to come at this with a new approach moving forward.
I’m still going to push myself to write weekly. But not let perfect get in the way of good. Not let fear of coming across as uneducated or unpolished prevent me from writing what’s on my mind.
I still want to follow my curiosities about consumption topics and do research where I see fit (I’ve really enjoyed that part, surprisingly). But I think I can stand to be a bit more, well, vulnerable about what in relation to these things weighs on my mind week-after-week.
It doesn’t have to be perfect or thoroughly researched. It just needs to be from the heart. And it’s not that what I’ve written thus far isn’t from the heart. I’m proud of what I’ve put out there, the fact that I’ve put out anything at all. But I’d like to try coming at it from a bit more of a raw angle in the hopes that will remove some of the pressure-to-be-perfect I’ve been putting on myself, and allow my sprinkles to really shine.
Just like my Christmas tree, perfectly imperfect and shining all the same.
