I’m not writing for a living or as a side-hustle.

So what motivated me initially?

Practicality

I want to improve my writing skills. Writing was never my strong suit back in school and I always found myself in an uncomfortable and unfamiliar situation when tasked to write. However, I see the practicality in writing. Writing improves thinking and communication which are two critical factors that help you advance in life. Writing helps you to organise your thoughts better and express better. It helps you craft better speeches and proposals, enabling you to win arguments and secure deals.

Mother Tongue

I want to practice my mother tongue — Mandarin Chinese. The last time I wrote a paragraph in Chinese was a few years ago during my Chinese class in school. Since then, I have never really spoken Chinese in my day to day life, let alone write in it. Hence, I want to write in Mandarin to be in touch with my mother tongue. I value my mother tongue as it keeps me connected with my heritage and it’s also the medium of communication between my grandmother and myself.

To Share

I want to share my thoughts on life, work, and basically anything. Besides, finding your medium of expression is important as it helps to reduce stress by processing your emotions and thoughts.

Difficulties

However, it’s not easy to start writing. It took me months before I published my first article. There are two main culprits behind it.

Procrastination

I kept on delaying writing and gave myself many convincing “reasons” on why I should wait and write another day. I need to be in the zone! I have another project. I am just tired and my body needs to rest.

Fear

I’m afraid to write. I’m worried about putting my work out there and getting judged by my friends and the public. Why is he even writing? What a boring piece! I can’t believe he is publishing this.

After all, I’m just an average writer. They are right. Why should I write? It’s not meant for me. There are better writers out there.

Overcoming

This continued for a couple of weeks till I came across two quotes that struck me.

“Do not fear failure but rather fear not trying” — Roy T. Bennett

“We suffer more in imagination than in reality.” — Seneca.

It’s about trying and then learning. Few writers wrote an exceptional first piece. Many wrote tens and hundreds of articles before finding their personal style and became good writers. The important thing here is trying.

A bad article is better than no article.

Furthermore, stop thinking about the judgement of others. You can’t control their thoughts. Importantly, you are writing for fun and not for a living. Hence, their opinions do not matter as much as you think. To be honest, most don’t really care about what you are doing. Most are too concerned with their own lives to be bothered by your one article.

Loving it!

Thus, I wrote. And since publishing my first article, I kept on writing and never regretted starting it.

The reasons behind why I write now outweighs any resistance I have towards writing. This is because of an additional component — fun. I am having fun writing, having fun sharing my thoughts and having fun learning. And this intrinsic motivation makes writing no longer feels unfamiliar and daunting. It transformed my whole writing experience and I am excited to write more.

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Previously published on medium

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