Hi, I’m Tony, and when I created my medium profile in December 2019, I made a goal to post an article once a month. Let me introduce you to my Annoying Inner Voice.
Annoying Inner Voice: “Tony, you like writing and speaking and you have so many blog post ideas. This goal is going to be so easy!”
Fast forward to 2022 and I have yet to post an article this year. Sure, I’ve posted and been involved on my company’s blog, but that’s different to writing blog posts that are personal to me.
Why haven’t I posted in a year?
In 2020 I was promoted from a role as a Senior Software Engineer to Engineering Manager.
Annoying Inner Voice: “But Tony, surely that must mean you have loooooads of stuff to post with all of your new learning experiences!”
Although that’s technically true, there’s one thing my Annoying Inner Voice conveniently leaves out…
Learning a new role is hard
It takes a lot of time and mental capacity to learn a completely new role. I do often take time out to reflect and journal (Google ‘reverse bucket lists’, they’re great!). However, turning a list of reflections into a blog post isn't always easy.
Also, although I would like to be the person who writes a “What I learned in my first 3 months as an Engineering Manager” blog post, for me learning this new role in my first 3 months was uncertain and uncomfortable. So for my own mental health, it was much better to focus on reflecting and learning in a private setting with myself, close friends and colleagues. (Who I’m very thankful for!).
Two years later, I feel much more confident, happy and comfortable in my role, enough so that I’m sharing this post!
Putting too much pressure on myself is not the way to go
Something else I would like to take issue with is my Annoying Inner Voice’s goal of one blog post a month. One thing I have learnt over the past few months is that setting a goal of X post in X months I find quite off-putting and makes me feel quite anxious when I fall behind on my monthly goals. I also lose sight of why I wanted to write in the first place. If you’re reading this and you have a goal similar to this, that's fine and I’m not knocking it if it works for you. For me personally, it didn't work very well but I recognise that we’re all different.
For me, I respond much better to goals when I instead focus on what I’m trying to accomplish by writing. Am I trying to inform? To entertain? To reflect? Any one of these is relevant and is a much better reason to write than simply because my Annoying Inner Voice says I need to post something once a month.
Or better yet, why can’t I just enjoy the journey and write what I’m passionate about writing instead of focusing on rigid targets? Even as I post this article, I have no idea what my next blog post will be and when I will write another one.
Does that matter? Nope!
So that’s all I had to say. My main takeaway reflecting on this is to be kind to myself. I was much happier when I focused on what I’m passionate about, avoiding the old chestnut of comparing myself to others. And also, for goodness sake don't listen to that Annoying Inner Voice! 🙂
