Great Expectations: Living Up to What I Asked For

I got a call the morning after the election from a friend I rarely speak to anymore. No love lost, but our lives have taken us in different directions. In any case, getting a call from him was surprising. When I texted him back (I had been in a meeting) he explained that he wanted to reach out because he knows I have a platform and he wanted to caution me against saying just anything about the election. “I’ve read your stuff. You’re no hack.” 

This is someone who doesn’t say shit to say it. He was always one of my most blunt friends and I appreciated that he’d call me on my shit. So this was unexpected. Frankly, I was shook.

I have been working hard over the past year to grow my brand. When I started, I had no idea what that was and I’m still adapting and shaping what it means. When I started the website, it was a random composite of writing I had done. I started recording videos by precariously holding my cellphone up with my laptop as I tried to find good angles in the dim lighting of my bedroom. All I knew was that I was inspired to act in a way that I never had been and so I went for it. It was the first time I took a leap that excited me more than it scared me. 

Now I’m starting to get a glimpse of the attention I had hoped for when I first started. My brand is taking shape. My website looks the way I want it to. I’m getting noticed by some people that I’ve wanted to catch the attention of. And I’m starting to get scared. For one, it means that I have to start sharpening my focus on what the next leap looks like, and the stakes will need to be higher. But even more pressing at the moment: Now that people are looking, what if I mess it up? 

The only way I was able to begin this journey was to abandon all fucks and just get started. I had to decide that my vision was stronger than the pieces I was missing. I had to believe that I was good enough. I learned so much in just going for it. It felt like I was growing at an accelerated speed because since I had never challenged myself to try before, it was easy to discover things I was doing wrong. I could easily spot my mistakes and work on a strategy to fix them and tinker until they were as close to what I wanted as possible. But ultimately, each time I put something out, I had to trust my creativity and trust the product. 

In the last couple of weeks, my perfectionist tendencies have been coming up again and causing me to doubt my artistry and ability. Because I’m scared of my new content not getting the same response. I fear less hits, lower numbers, less engagement. So half-written stories and ideas remain unfinished in my notes. I’ll often read an article that I started a thread about months before and hate myself for not having confidence in what I should already know to be good enough. 

Despite the bumpy ride it’s taken to see them, a few things came together this week to help me recognize I’ve been looking at mistakes all wrong. Mistakes are an opportunity to expose the flaws in my process. They’re a way to discover bad habits. I watched a video this week that said people fail when they focus on reproducing good results; they need to focus on recreating the process. I have to create a solid process. 

Writing and sharing messages is no different than the scientific method: you have to run with an idea and keep perfecting and altering variables to hope to end up at the result you wanted. It takes dedicated time and patience to get the recipe right. So you have to just keep doing the work. Do it as well as you can but don’t stop and don’t doubt it. If I really did the work, there should be nothing to doubt or fear. 

I’m pretty sure I’ve understood some version of this lesson already, but it’s hitting me much harder now. I have to return to the belief that got me started. I’m rededicating myself to producing to the best of my ability and then improving on the parts I know can be better. I have to trust that even if it’s not “perfect,” it’s worthwhile. I asked for this platform. I’m starting to see just a small slice of that. If I can’t rise to this challenge, I don’t deserve the dream.