Reasons why I am starting a blog
A year ago, if you had told me that I would be starting my own blog I would laugh internally, judging that comment with disbelief. So, what changed my mind?
TLDR
Building a routine
Consuming content intentionally
Implementing your learnings
Prioritizing my mental health
Documenting life
As everyone else has experienced this past 2020, I believe has given me (forced me) the opportunity to invest in myself. We use to have commutes to work, happy hour events after work, going out for drinks with friends, and the list goes on. For most of 2020, I tried keeping my daily routine: waking up around the same time as when I had to drive to work, exercising in the morning, and then focus on my 8-5pm job. This allowed me to make sure I was getting the most of my time.
I hadn’t quite figured out how to make best use of my time after 5pm. At the time I was working with an IT team that constantly pushed my mental capacities and would leave me with no mental energy to continue learning and pushing myself, on a personal level: following my passions and interests. After work, you’d probably find me watching videos, scrolling through social media, watching Netflix, justconsuming media. Don’t get me wrong, doing all of that is not a bad thing, I still do these. The one thing that has changed from the beginning of 2020 (and prior) to now is that I am trying to be more mindful and intentional about what I consume.
For the longest time I have found Youtube channels such as Ali Abdaal, Nathaniel Drew (and No Backup Plan), Matt D’Avella, MKBHD, Peter McKinnon, Rene Ritchie to be intriguing and insightful. However, I would only watch their videos and not take action. I’d feel inspired. I’d feel my brain gears grinding. But that was it, and the cycle would repeat again and again. And yes, I’m guilty of spending more time than I should watching The Late Late Show with James Corden, First We Feast, Replay (For the Try not to Laugh videos), and towards the end of 2020 for some reason Shawn Mendes interviews. This is never going to stop. I will continue to watch these types of videos as they also bring enjoyment and inspiration to my day (They are my escape from reality). Thinking of myself as just a consumer didn’t settle well with me; so I began taking action.
Slowly, I started to read more. (I wish I had done this sooner). Ok… I started with listening to audiobooks, on Audible, because I would be able to focus more on the content that I was trying to absorb. I started listening to books that my Youtube inspirations would recommend on their videos and other sources, such as:
Make Time by Jake Knapp and John Zeratsky
The 4-Hour Workweek by Tim Ferris
The Compound Effect by Darren Hardy
Atomic Habits by James Clear
The 5AM Club by Robin Sharma
Hooked: How to build habit-forming products by Nir Eyal and Ryan Hoover.
Steal like an Artist by Austin Kleon (I actually read this book)
I began to add listening to audiobooks and learning to my routine. Little by little, I started implementing the things I was learning, to my day to day life, and I will continue doing so. For some reason the following quote has stuck with me and I live by it:
Fools say that they learn by experience. I prefer to profit by others experience.
- Otto von Bismarck
Take advantage of the content that has already been created and is recorded on any medium, for us to reference, and learn from.
On November 2020, I started practicing and prioritizing my mental health for the first time. I had tried practicing meditation before but it never became a habit. I wasn’t consistent enough. The two tools and practices I have been partaking in are journaling and meditation. These practices have empowered me by giving me tools to have control over the thousands of thoughts that fog our brain, and thus, being able to put my time and energy to my true priorities and passions.
These tools, awareness, and clarity are the reason why this blog was born. I will continue to learn, implement, and document my experiences, and tools that cross my path as I continue to explore my passions. If in the process of documenting and sharing this, I inspire someone as I share my experiences and learnings, in addition to having documented my thinking for self-reflection in the future, it’s safe to say we’ve experienced a true win-win situation.
P.S. Thanks Ali Abdaal for your book suggestions, Nathaniel Drew for your Skillshare course on Documenting life, and Matt D’Avella for living life with an open mind, trying new things, documenting, and sharing your experiments.
