Battling Mediocrity

// Writing becomes easier but more stressful.

Over the last 20 weeks, I’ve developed a writing habit. However, in the quiet corridors of creativity, the fear of mediocrity echoes louder than any critique.

As Hemingway once said, 'There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.’

And that’s how I write - I have a list of topics and I just sit and write. I tend not to follow any formal structure or style as I’m trying to find a way that I can express myself through words.

The last 20 weeks have been really interesting to me as I am now starting to notice how writing can improve, it seems like a weird thing to say - I mean, how can writing improve? It’s just the same words in your head but now, you’re able to write them in a more cohesive way.

The cohesive way that words flow together becomes much easier with practice - it’s the same as when I started out designing social media content for my Instagram. The graphics, the text and the copy was really poor at the start but because design is so visual, it was easier to ‘see’ improvements.

The way I see improvements in writing are small but for example, when it comes to writing a caption for an image on LinkedIn, I spend way less time on formulating the ‘perfect’ words as they seem to work together. It’s a weird thing to explain but I am much more confident in my writing now.

I think this may be down to the varied content that I’m putting out - I haven’t stuck to one format, I’ve tried lists, experienced based blogs and lessons and over time, I’m constantly fighting that urge to deliver something mediocre.

// Mediocre in my eyes.

Mediocre to me is that line that you cross so that people don’t want to read anymore. Mediocrity thrives when you start to get comfortable as you fail to innovate and push the boundaries in your writing. I don’t want to be a writer who fears taking risks or someone who sticks to safe topics and conventional structures.

It came to me this week because I now get and understand fully that lists are lazy - they offer a short respite from week to week when the creativity dries up.

The whole focus from the blog article came from the fear of releasing a 43 point list on my birthday last week. I know that I could have written something more heartfelt or experience led but I struggled and the ‘easiest’ way out is to release a list.

I have now made a rule in my writing journey - I will only ever release a list if there truly is a writers block (or I am super pressed for time) and I will not do this more than once in any 5 week period.

I don’t want to have mediocre content - no writer does.

The issue with writing lists or other similar content styles is that anyone can do that - anyone can write a list style blog article and the way I see connection happening through writing is by using an authentic first person perspective with emotions and experience on a topic - that’s how I can connect with people.

Staying in a comfort zone of writing ‘easy things’ can offer some short term reprieve but it does nothing to improve my writing or improve the readers experience.

// The last 20 weeks.

When I first started this journey, I started out with a wave of enthusiasm and the buzz was to just write with the goal of actually producing something week on week but as with every journey, there comes a point when you need to evolve and the journey takes on a new purpose.

My purpose now is to improve my writing every week - I want to be better and I want to deliver articles and thoughts that people want to read - I am starting to understand what resonates with people and how things fit together to form a cohesive and readable narrative.

There have been one or two stand out blog articles for me over the last 20 weeks - the first one that I really thought ‘Wow, what have I written’ was the blog around The Power of Belonging because I used the way that I felt and the emotion around being with others to create a piece of writing that I'm really proud of.

The first time I recognised that I could use my own experiences and emotions in my writing came early on in the journey as I wrote an article about the Best and Worst Advice that I’d ever received.

I don’t see either of these articles as mediocre because they ‘mean’ something to me.

In the last 20 weeks, I’ve also fell short of what I ‘want’ to achieve and I would love to go back on my old writing and do a ‘Directors Cut’ on some articles to improve them because I can see where I lost my way.

I have the same feeling about some of my earlier Vlogs too - the videos could be snappier, flow better, have a clearer storyline but without actually creating these videos - I would never be able to see where I should be improving.

I digress, the article I would love to ‘rewrite’ would be the AI and Emotion article as I can see so much potential but I was trying to be too clever - I had an ‘idea’ of what I wanted to write and unfortunately, I just stuck with the element that I ‘thought’ would be good to convey the message and actually, it doesn’t flow how I’d like.

// Moving past mediocrity.

Mediocrity is the bane of all writers lives I think - we all struggle with ‘writers block’ and the easy way out is to be mediocre.

I want to evolve and whilst I understand that some weeks I won’t perform at my best and the writing will be substandard, I also want to make sure I am producing something worth reading.

The way I want to avoid being mediocre is doing the following -

// 1 - Only write about things that I have experienced or that I have a genuine interest in because trying to write about something that doesn't fit with me will mean that I move away from my passion. It could also mean that I start to try to mimic other writers or to cater to a perceived audience perspective (writing for someone else rather than myself) and then I’ll end up avoiding genuine thoughts and emotions. I want to remain authentic because that’s what I see as a powerful tool in engaging my readers and creating a lasting impact.

// 2 - I want to begin to broaden the way I write about topics - not only from an experience led perspective and of course, this is going to be my default process but I want to tell stories - not only from the first person perspective but from a completely different angle. This is going to be a struggle for me at the start because I’ll feel like I’m just writing a story but I want to challenge myself and tell the same story but just in a different way.

// 3 - Finally, I want to continue to take risks. I have found myself ‘sticking’ to safe topics - those topics which I know I can write about with ease. Those topics which won’t have too much of an emotional input but I want to put more emotion into my writing and to do this, I need to take the risk of writing more. For example, I’d really love to delve into the mental health aspects of my life and some other topics but for now, I’ve stayed safe and talked about ‘safe’ things.

Coming out of the otherwise of 20 weeks is going to be strange as when I started this back in July, I didn’t believe I would continue this but strangely, it’s been going for almost half a year now and the benefits are adding up and compounding over time.

In everything I create, my goal is to dare to be different because it's those who actively pursue the extraordinary that find greatness. As I conclude this blog, I make a promise to myself and to you, my readers, that mediocrity will not be my destination.

The journey ahead is lit by the torch of risk taking, and it requires the courage to be uniquely myself.