Are you bored of your own voice?
// My Loop
When it comes to writing every week, I think I've been fairly consistent - there have been only two weeks in the last (almost) two years when I have missed an entry and in the early days, I made a promise to never create a 'listicle' style article ever again. When I say 'listicle' - I mean the easy to create '10 reasons why you should...' style blogs but my heart still longs to be there, easily cracking out the fake list style blog posts but my mind stops me in my tracks and I crack on with writing but there comes a point where it all starts to sound the same. Doesn't there?
It's not because I’ve got nothing left to say, but because I’ve think I've said it so many times, in so many ways, that even I start to tune out.
I mean c'mon, I show up, I write the post, I share the idea — and then somewhere in the middle of it, a thought creeps in:
"Have I already said this? Have I said it too many times?"
It’s not that I don’t believe in it anymore, the way I write, I think It’s that I’ve sat with it for so long, the words don’t spark like they used to.
I think it's that spark - the one that carried you at the start, the one which got you writing in the first place - it softens and you evolve personally (and professionally) and you're suddenly left wondering if this is still the right message, or just the one you’ve got used to repeating. I know I do, I've had it a few times over the last 6-10 weeks, where I get stuck on something to say and I look at my blogs and wonder if there is an angle that I haven't reached into or whether I'm missing something and in those moments, it's when I start to doubt myself.
It’s tempting, in those moments, to throw it all out and chase something new. Find something shinier, something that feels louder or fresher or more certain (and my god, do I want to write a listicle article in those moments - just to get the damn blog off my chest and be done with it) but I've started to wonder if the boredom is saying something else.
Not that it’s wrong - just that it’s familiar now.
And maybe that’s part of it.
// My Drift
I think - when I look back over my entire blog 'back catalogue' that after a while, I've started to notice a shift. Not a dramatic one - just a slow, steady drift that’s hard to see at first.
As I've said before, I'm still doing the work. I'm still showing up, still putting ideas into the world. But something about it feels… off. Like I'm echoing myself. Saying the same thing in slightly different shapes and starting to wonder if it’s starting to sound the same to everyone else too.
But I believe thats the premise of early clarity - the energy that came with putting your voice out there for the first time - it softens and you begin to find a regularity and a stable footing for how you write and you begin to feel further away from the reasons you started.
It's not because they don’t matter anymore, but because you’ve sat with them for so long that they don’t light up in the same way - you've exhausted that energy of 'enthusiasm' and you need to find something else to kickstart your brain.
And that’s where the real work begins. Where the magic happens.
Because you’re still in it and you're still doing it - you still care about the work. You still believe in the message. But it doesn’t buzz you like it used to, and that absence of energy makes you question whether something’s wrong - with the work, or with you. It's another reason why some people stop, they stop producing the work that matters because they feel like it's gone stale.
The truth is, I don’t think it’s any of those reasons.
I think it’s just what happens when you’ve been in something long enough to stop being surprised by it. When the novelty wears off, and you’re left with what’s real - the part that doesn’t rely on adrenaline, or reaction, or momentum.
And that is 100% the hard bit - because it asks you to keep going without the thrill and the excitement of sharing something new, to keep speaking even when it feels like you’re just repeating yourself. You have to just trust that just because you’re familiar with it, doesn’t mean everyone else is.
And even if they are, maybe that’s the point.
Maybe the job now isn’t to reinvent the message — but to sit with it a little longer.
To listen again.
To dig a bit deeper.
And see what’s still there, underneath the surface.
// The Check-In
Whenever my body - quick note, when I'm writing this blog, and I'm talking about how my 'body' and 'mind' are pulling in two separate directions - I've got R Kelly in my head screaming the opening lines to 'Bump N Grind' - my bodies telling me yeeeaaahhhhhssss - but anyway, I digress - Whenever my body is telling me to write another 'listicle' article or I have a mind blank because I don't think I have anything to write about, I start to question myself and then I check in.
I think to myself that maybe the question isn’t “Have I said this too many times?”
And I reframe it to maybe it’s “Why does this still feel important to me?”
I think that it’s easy to confuse boredom with irrelevance, to assume that just because something feels flat, it must be tired - out of date, or no longer useful, but what if it’s not boredom with the message at all? What if it’s just the fact that I'm tired from sitting so close to it for too long?
This is where I’ve had to slow down and ask a few things - questions I’m still asking now, as I write this.
Am I bored because I’ve run out of things to say, or because I’ve stopped giving myself space to say them differently?
Am I repeating myself, or am I just starting to say it clearly?
Am I expecting my own work to surprise me, when actually, it’s doing what it’s meant to - grounding me?
And I think the last point there is the most important - that's the one which gets me thinking differently and reframes it for me because I have written about the same topics in different weeks and each time, I write about it in a different way - sometimes I think we expect the wrong kind of response.
I think our minds are wired to think that we’re looking for spark, for novelty, for that rush of early feedback - when sometimes, what we’re actually doing is building something longer-term or rolling that idea around in our heads trying to figure something out and long-term work feels different.
Sometimes when I'm writing, it sits in the background. It grows quietly and as the idea forms, we write. Then once it's found a little path in your head, we write. When you feel comfortable sharing your perspective, we write. And slowly but surely, we become comfortable with the whole idea of it all and, you've guessed it, we write - all in different ways and all in ways which give a different perspective but once you've written about it once, you think you need to find that spark again - you don't.
If you’re in that space now - where you’re starting to wonder if your voice still matters - this might be the point to check in. Not with the algorithm, not with the numbers, but with yourself.
Do you still believe in what you’re saying?
Does it still feel true, even if it doesn’t feel new?
Are you saying the same thing but you're further down the line, and you have a different viewpoint?
Then maybe that’s enough and maybe that's all you need to keep writing?
// The Check-In
Not everything needs to feel new to be worth sharing - I think that's the point of this blog.
I definitely know that it's something I’ve been reminding myself of lately - trying to find something new every week is HARD. It's a long ass journey but the longer I write, the more I realise that clarity rarely arrives with a big reveal. The more I'm coming to the realisation that it’s shaped slowly - by returning to the same message again and again, until you start to understand it differently.
Every single time, without fail, I have something to write about. And it could be that it's a new perspective - a new way of saying it BUT - it could also be the first time someone is hearing you talk about it.
The challenge, I think, is being okay with the repetitiveness of that, all because when something stops feeling exciting, we assume it’s no longer useful and in this modern world, we're taught to discard it.
We confuse familiarity with failure.
Ove the course of this blog I've realised what’s really going on - you’re close to it. Closer than anyone else. You’ve lived with the idea, sat with the idea, and chipped away at the notion of it all until it sounds like you.
Maybe the work now isn’t about surprise, but how it resonance's with you. Not saying something new. But saying something true. Until it sticks.
So if you’re in that space - where your voice feels worn out, where the message feels tired - don’t rush to burn it down and definitely don't stop.
Stay with it.
Write the words.
Say the thing.
Again, if you need to.
(and once more if you're certain)
Because the repetition might not mean you’re stuck.
It might just mean you’re getting closer to the whole thing.
