The one piece of advice I’d want to share: be consistent. Consistency is the most fundamental virtue of being successful. Action brings clarity. Taking action — any action, even if you realize later you were going in the wrong direction — will bring more clarity. And once you have clarity, making progress gets ways easier. Because in the end, you’ll always follow the path that is the most clear.
I’ve been preaching this advice for years, but for many years in my early writing career, was never consistent! I’d write like crazy, post 5 long articles a week, really thoughtful and thought-out…but then I’d stop after week 3. Then I wouldn’t write again for 3 months, maybe even 6 months. It’s hard to be consistent — real hard — especially if you don’t know why you’re doing the hard work.
It was hard for me to be consistent. I was on like, year 4 of blogging — after 50+ months, I had gained virtually nothing — I had a few dozen subscribers, I’d get a handful of views a day, and I had made no money. It was hard to keep thinking of article ideas, spend a lot of time writing them, and pressing “publish” after all that time.
Finally, I changed my environment in a major way — my wife and I moved to South Korea to teach English. I knew that if I didn’t make my writing career work then, it’d never work — I’d have to go find another horrible desk job when I came back home. It’s amazing how much a change of scenery can positively affect your production.
I gritted my teeth and started writing all the time. I was publishing 20–30 articles a month, 95% of which were total crap (go read my content from spring of 2017 — you’ll see what I mean!). But I was consistent. And in 3 month of being consistent, I saw more progress than the previous 3 years combined. I found out what worked, what didn’t. I found my audience and angle. When we left South Korea, I had 50,000+ subscribers, 200k — 300k views/month, a signed book deal, and a personal business. It had worked.
Action brings clarity. Be consistent — take a lot of action. You’ll figure out things very quickly that way.