I'm not here to suffer, I'm here to write

How I changed my approach to writing because I had to change my approach to life.

The first few pieces I published here all felt flowy.

I had an idea and it felt easy to follow the creative impulse all the way to a finished piece.

My previous article on Shadow Work felt a bit more effortful. It turned into a longer article than I had envisioned. I was less satisfied with it, once it was done.

But I did get it done. Published it. Started on the next piece.

Four paragraphs into that one, I stopped.

This doesn’t feel right.

I closed the draft and started writing this one instead.

Walking away from an unfinished piece of work just because it feels difficult is very unusual behavior for me.

And I love it!

Pushing Through

For most of my entrepreneurial career, I was all about rapid implementation. A big believer in: “your job is to ship”. Moving fast. Getting things done. Pushing through.

Especially that last one: pushing through.

Of course it sucks, sometimes. Most of the time, even.

“If it were easy to build a successful business, everyone would be doing it.”

But guess what: most people don’t do it. And most people who try, fail.

So suck it up, buttercup. If anything, having all this resistance, all this hard work to push through proves that you’re doing something right.

These obstacles are where everyone else fails. Pushing through means you’re leaving a competitor behind.

And look, it worked!

I did succeed and conquer and out-compete, following this philosophy.

So what happened?

Why have I gone so soft that I abandon an article at the first sign of resistance?

And why on earth am I happy about it?

Tracking Aliveness

I’m learning to pay attention to subtle signals. When I feel resistance while writing, I no longer just grit my teeth and keep going.

I know I can do that. I’ve done it countless times.

But instead, I want to pay close attention to that feeling of resistance. I want to see where it comes from and what it has to say.

Am I feeling resistance because I’m about to get really vulnerable and part of me is scared of that? That’s the kind of resistance I want to lean into. That’s a sign to keep going!

Or is it the kind of resistance that says: this ain’t it?

Resistance that says: this isn’t the most important nor the most interesting thing I can write about.

Resistance because part of me knows I’m off track, no longer following the creative spark.

That’s the kind of resistance that makes me stop and even walk away.

I’m tracking a sense of expansiveness and aliveness in my work.

If it ever feels like I’m trying to wring out a dry sponge, it’s a sign to stop. Time to look for more juiciness elsewhere.

Tracking aliveness has become my number 1 priority in my creative work.

Why?

Because I’ve seen the limits of the other way.

I can only push so far

With Thrive Themes, I followed a straight forward, systematic content marketing strategy. I pushed my way through many a content piece, I shipped. And it worked. The content attracted the right kind of audience, that audience turned into a customer base.

With ikario, I tried to make more personal, while also trying to play the algorithm game. I was trying to find ways to present, edit, title and thumbnail my video content to gain more reach.

This was a frustrating experience. Over and over again, I felt like the authenticity was lost in the process of trying to engagement optimize a video. I’d start with that creative spark and a sense of excitement, but by the time we had a finished product, the spark had long been extinguished.

With QuitByHealing, I played the engagement game, all the way (with short form content). I learned how to go viral. Repeatedly.

It worked. The videos got loads of views, the subscriber count kept growing, I went from zero to over 4,000 members in a private community in under 2 years.

But the most viral videos attracted the wrongest kind of audience. The most viral videos also felt the most fake and lifeless, in many cases.

This was a form of success, but I wanted none of it.

Besides, AI generated content is about to out-perform human creators when it comes to churning out viral slop anyway. Futile to keep going down that path.

I’ve seen the range of what I can and can’t do with the “pushing through” approach. And frankly, I’m done churning out content for the sake of following some kind of marketing strategy.

My content is better when it’s more alive

I’ve been experimenting with this new approach of making content for a while now. As a preliminary result, I can say two things:

1. My content is not worse when I track aliveness instead of doing the strategic engagement optimization thing.

2. My more alive content also doesn’t necessarily perform worse. Sometimes, it does quite well (even if it’s literally and unedited video of me rambling off the top of my head for 45 minutes on a topic I’m passionate about).

I may not be going viral on a regular basis, but my content isn’t exactly falling flat, either.

And “going viral” isn’t really that useful, as I’ve experienced first hand.

Making a difference

My goal is not to win a popularity contest. My goal is to be a teacher.

What matters to me most is the impact my work has on people’s lives.

I recently released the Introspective Writing Course and something interesting is happening with it.

In terms of sales, it’s far from being my most popular course.

And that’s no surprise, really.

“Sit down and write” is not a particularly marketable or sexy premise.

I made this course because writing has been the most powerful, most valuable tool in my own journey of personal development. I wanted to share this with people.

This was my motivation for making the course, not a market analysis that told me there was a great business opportunity here.

Making this course felt personal and vulnerable. I could feel the rawness and realness as I made the lessons. Many times, I wondered “is this too much?”

And the results people are getting are amazing. I love seeing that people are tapping into the magic that I experience when I use writing for personal transformation.

I don’t think I could have achieved this with a more systematic, formulaic approach in my teaching.

This is an important sign to me. It tells me that tracking aliveness works. Maybe not for winning a popularity contest, but definitely for making a difference.

But having said all that, I have a confession to make:

This is more personal than I’ve been letting on

My tendency to always push through was not limited to my work. It’s how I did everything.

I’d just run at any challenge head on and keep pushing until something happened.

I’d keep pushing at the gym and repeatedly get injured. I’d keep pushing, keep trying to make failing relationships work, no matter how hopeless it seemed. I’d push through my daily routine and schedule, no matter how I felt.

It was my hammer and every part of my life was a nail.

And well, it stopped working for me.

Sometimes, when you keep pushing hard enough for long enough, you achieve your goal. Sometimes, all you achieve is burnout, injury and disappointment.

It may work for some things but it doesn’t work for relationships. It doesn’t work for my health. It doesn’t work for my overall well-being.

What I’m doing here, with my writing, is a reflection of what I’m doing in my life in general.

I’m learning to be more sensitive to the signals I’m getting. I’m learning that when something doesn’t work, throwing myself at it full force is rarely the best response. I’m learning that it’s okay to stop, pause and even walk away from something.

I’m learning to track aliveness.

I’m not here (on Substack) to suffer, I’m here to write.

And I’m not here (on Earth) to suffer, I’m here to live.

How it’s going

In my life, this new approach has brought me a new level of peace. I’m less stressed, under less pressure than I used to be.

Applying this new approach to my training has also led to me being in the best shape of my life, while enjoying my training more than ever before.

And in my writing?

Well, here we are, a few dozen paragraphs into a new piece. I got here in the time it would have taken me to chew on and re-write the 4 unsatisfying paragraphs from the article I abandoned.

It was easy to get here. It’s not the greatest piece of writing on the internet, but it feels real. It’s a true reflection of what’s happening for me, of what’s important to me.

It feels alive.

Is it the kind of thing you’d like to read more of? You tell me!