(Last Updated on Jul 18, 2024)

Remember how the world was supposed to end in 2012? The year when every culture in the world had at least one reasoning as to why the world would end or “transform” in that year. Seems like a long time ago, right? I was graduating from my engineering college that year. It was also the year when I started my blog. And this piece is about that blog. You were expecting to hear about the end of the world? Sorry, no conspiracy theories here!

I have always been fond of writing – I remember writing poems in my school days and entering competitions. I also used to write short stories with imaginary characters. It gave me a sense of strength – creating something on my own. Social media was not big at the time – Facebook was just catching on in India, Orkut was big but not at all like the platforms of today. The best way to write was to start a blog and that’s the route I decided to take. I wrote mostly about different thoughts I had – my experience of joining B-School, joining a club, the different trips I went on etc. It was not a regular habit and more of a journal. An outlet to ensure that I don’t lose the writing habit.

Life kept happening and I graduated from B-School. I wrote a blog then about how life changes from campus to corporate and it is one of my most read blogs till date. That gave me a bit of confidence to write more from my actual corporate experiences. But not enough confidence to actually go through with it – I was only just getting started in my career and had a long way to go before I could claim any mastery of any topic. So, that never really materialized.

That brought me to travel writing. I love travelling and it is something I do regularly with a lot of advance planning. One thing I had realised by now about writing was that it allowed me to capture moments and emotions that could never be captured by photos. And with technology making photography and storage so easy, there were too many photos and no time to see them! Writing was the best way to relive the memories. I also realised from the feedback I was getting that other people were also able to imagine the trip in vivid detail while reading the blog. It was fascinating and became the main reason for me to continue pursuing this habit.

Two or three trips every year gave me plenty of content to write about – itineraries, places to see, places to eat, our actual travel stories – there was a lot to be written about. But again, I struggled to put anything out. I always had a problem with external validation.

• If there weren’t enough people reading what I was writing, then what was the point?
• Who was I writing for? 
• Long form writing is dead. No one has time to read an article for 7-8 minutes at a stretch.
• Should I adapt to the social media format and write tiny bits?
• If there was no “success” at the end of the road, then what was the point of all this? 

These were questions that kept annoying me. We were no longer living in 2012. If a video or post didn’t have thousands of likes and shares, was it even a good post? Keep reading – I will put up my answers to each of the above questions which helped me overcome the resistance.

I kept going back and forth on the objective behind writing and maintaining a blog. Work kept me busy and became an excuse for why I was not writing regularly anymore. I knew it was not a valid excuse but it was super convenient – my work pays me for the time I spend doing it. Writing doesn’t. So, why write? Right?

In 2020, the world came to a halt due to the pandemic. It gave everyone, including me, time to pause and reflect on life itself. I started reading more – a habit that was long gone. In 2021, I picked up Atomic Habits by James Clear and it really helped “clear” out (sorry, couldn’t resist the pun!) a lot of the mess that had built up inside my head over the years. I always knew the power of having a routine and tried to follow one as best as I could – even in B-School, I used to sleep early and wake up early. But some things which were my strengths and things that brought me joy had gone on the backburner. So, I decided to use the power of habits to revive them all.

Here’s what I did – I listed down all the principles from the book. Starting right from the identity I wanted to associate myself with. Then I listed down the habits that would reinforce that identity. For each habit, I put down ways in which I could nurture them on a daily basis and set up my environment to support them. I could probably write a detailed piece on that itself, but for now I’ll stick to the writing part.

I blocked time on my calendar – 1 hour every week which would be dedicated to writing. I would focus only on my travel blogs – so that I didn’t have to worry about the topic (another excuse for not writing – what should I write about?). And guess what? It didn’t work!

Why? Because I was still struggling to justify the time I was spending on it. Each blog took at least 3-4 hours to put together. It wasn’t just about the writing. I had to go back to my photos and find the relevant ones, put captions, insert them at appropriate places, add tags to the post, add a featured image, write up a small excerpt to act as a social media post and then go live with it! Then worry about what was the ideal time of the day, ideal day of the week to post. Check how many people viewed it. It was too much of a pain which actually sucked out all the happiness that came with the writing itself. Managing social media is a huge pain when you actually get down to execution.

One good thing was that we were still writing short notes during the trip. That could act as the material whenever I found the right mindset to sit and write. Another year passed. 

In 2023, something changed. As of November, I have been writing regularly for over 4 months. I’ve put out a new blog every week for the last 16 weeks. What changed? 

We’ll continue the story in the next blog as this one has become long enough. Stay tuned!