I’ve learned to steadfastly believe in myself and that I can do anything I put my mind to, because expecting anyone else to without them being in my head feels unrealistic. I’m not high on myself—I speak very matter-of-factly about my #BloggerLife and everything it’s given me ’til now—but this world frowns on tooting your own horn, preferring that you fall in line and do what society expects of you. And that same world is the one with everyone too afraid to lend each other a hand, burned by life so often that they’re unable to trust without tangible proof that they should bother.
The world wants most of us convinced that success isn’t in our futures, making things infinitely harder for anyone straying from the norm. It values conformity not conviction, obeisance over originality—if you want a destiny you can truly call your own, you’ll need to do more than just walk the walk and talk the talk… your principles need to live through every fibre of your being so the world can see you stand tall in your beliefs!
But are you willing to do everything you must to go all the way?
Many bloggers I’ve known were full of passion and energy—but they, like myself, pointed it all in the wrong direction. Party harder. Blog faster. These were the things we’d do as we struggled to get noticed, trying to be the first bloggers out the gate rather than be the ones who did things best.
But what’s the point of shouting when you’ve got nothing to say?
We needed to stop blogging about the same things as everyone else, pouring more of our authentic selves into what we created. We wrote for others’ approval, trying to convince them we were good enough for their time and attention, rather than focus on writing work that’d mean something to us now, tomorrow, or any time years from now. We needed to stop trying to ape others’ success and stop holding back—the ultimate goal of every blogger should lie in creating content truly reflecting their souls; not chasing after cash like it’s easy money.
And that’s what’s kept me grinding—trying to find my answer. I once read that someone blogged to better understand herself, and that’s exactly it—somewhere deep inside is your best self looking to crawl out and do things you can’t even imagine.
We all have the potential to become amazing—question is: will we overcome the obstacles in our lives to make it happen?
The World Will Tell You of the Things You Can’t Do… But That’s Only Because You’ve Yet to Prove it WRONG.
“Never do—what they do, what they do, what they do…”
— The Roots, “What They Do”, Illadelph Halflife (1996)
We’re all going to spend most of our lives trying to prove ourselves to the world. Proving to our parents that we’re good enough to survive on our own and make something of ourselves in the wild. Prove to employers that we’re worth hiring when we’re up against thousands of other applicants. We’ll have to prove that we’re competent parents, trustworthy friends, or that we can handle ourselves when the going gets tough.
But we should never have to prove to ourselves that we’re capable of extraordinary things—if you don’t believe in your worth, who will? I used to look at my world each morning and ask myself, “Am I good enough?”… but I’ve long since stopped asking—if I need to ask, it means I’ve still got work to do before my dreams become reality. Instead, I look at my #BloggerLife and everything in it, constantly reworking it all to become something greater than any post could’ve done on its own—good bloggers write good posts; great ones weave them together into a brand.
So stop selling yourself short—there’s an audience out there for just about anything the world can come up with, so never think your ideas too stupid or unconventional for the world to want them.
You’ve gotta do what’s right for you—spread your message, make your money, but do so in a way that challenges you to continue growing and accomplish things today that the old you couldn’t possibly do.
It’s time to look beyond the cage you might not even know you’re in and figure out what you can do to escape into a world rich with possibility and opportunity.
I’ll believe in this blog to the end, doing what’s necessary to create something truly outstanding. Maybe I won’t grow any bigger. Maybe I won’t end up blogging every day or ever go viral with my content… but that’s not what it’s all about.
What matters is that it makes me happy and continues reminding me of why I started writing in the first place. Whether it takes 100 posts or 10,000, I’ll see this path through to its end, satisfied I did all that I could to tell my story.
But it happens a step at a time, taking the journey to an excellent future through many small actions and choices.
So go—go stand for something and change the world; we’re all waiting for you to do something spectacular.
Until the next,
–case p.
