My goal this year was to post once a day for the entire year. It’s nearly September and I’m on track. I’ve posted 300 times to my blog since I started it nearly three years ago. Sometimes I have something insightful to say. Sometimes I can barely eek out a few sentences. Sometimes I’m a smart ass. Sometimes I am thoughtful. It hasn’t been easy, but I think I’ve created the habit of writing daily. That was my ultimate goal after all.
Often I wonder why I am still doing this? Do I have anything of value to say. Then I get a comment on one of my posts and I know I do. Why? Because I’ve reached someone. I’ve written something that resonates and prompts them to think and respond.
Everything in our lives these days forces us to want more. More likes? More comments? More people reading my posts? More subscribers? I admit I’ve focused on this in the past and it changes how I write. I try to write something that will get the aforementioned things (likes, comments, readers) and those posts are duds because they aren’t authentic.
This emphasis on more prevents us from identifying what really matters. Serving others. I have 25 followers/subscribers to my blog. That’s 25 people who read it regularly and get something from it. Would I like more? Yes, sure. But I don’t want more at the expense of being inauthentic or sharing something that doesn’t add value to their daily lives.
So that leads to the question – who do I serve? I have high school classmates, former rowers that I’ve coached, colleagues, teammates that read my blog regularly. I share what I have to say each day and they either take it or leave it. I don’t market my blog. I don’t send solicitation emails. Maybe I’m doing it all wrong. I’m not looking to make money from this blog. The only thing that I would hope is that if you like what I’ve written, share it. I hope to give you something worth reading, worth sharing, worth talking about.
Who do I serve? The ones that have found this blog time and time again and keep coming back. People who want something authentic from a 40 year old mom or two who used to row and coach and is still trying to figure out how to be my best self. If I serve 25 people for the rest of this blog’s existence, well, I think that’s pretty darn cool.
