We Don’t Learn To Swim By Looking Longingly At The Waters

Dated ; 16, June 2021

This day last year, I penned down a prayer in a book that I received as a gift on my birthday, which coincidentally, was also the day I launched this blog. Naturally, half of the space in my head was dedicated, at the time, to churning things out, as regards the blog as I had questions and fears ringing in my head along with the dutiful sense of excitement.

The prayer I penned down is worded thus, “While it is perfectly normal for me to consider within myself how I’d keep up with blogging consistently, It is not enough grounds for me to doubt that I can do this in a meaningful way. Neither is it grounds to quit. A gift that is not used will not have the chance to grow and be developed, so I will use this gift until I can’t anymore. Dated ; 16-06-2020.

Sometimes I think it sounds more like a mantra than a prayer, but anyway, it was in response to some sentences I read in the book that I was reading at the time, that has stayed with me to this day –  One of which was, “We cannot afford to doubt our God-assigned, unique destiny. If we do, we will undermine with hesitancy, fear, or anger all that has been entrusted to us.” – Lisa Bevere.

A word in season if you ask me, because I surely had a lot of self-doubt at the time. Self-doubt adorned with many fears that really rooted in the unknown.

After one year of blogging on a limb, I have these struggles to admit;

1. I haven’t figured out what my blogging-niche is yet, and I’m grateful to all of you that keep reminding me to but thinking and stressing about it has been giving me anxiety. I’m hoping it will come to me when the time is right and that I can enjoy the process up while waiting to figure it out.
2. I haven’t found a perfect logo yet. The one I’m currently using is great especially because my amateur self designed it, but come on, I still need help with that.
3. I don’t have my itinerary for the next one year planned out, perfectionist as I may be. And seriously, who wouldn’t like to have it all planned and figured out
4. I have only very recently written out my personal statement to myself about what I want my blog to be like, and I suspect that now that `I have it written dow, the list will only keep growing as I grow more into myself.
5. I still have trouble explaining to people what my blog is about because I can pen it down better than I can verbally explain to you. I don’t know why this is but its just so.
6. Even if I spell-check manually or automatically, I still find errors in my writings. this excites me as much as it keeps me on my toes.

But what I can tell you in addition is;

I started – and this was the hardest part, for this I congratulate myself.

My writing and grammar has improved today from what it was a year ago, it never would have if I didn’t exercise my pen, or in this case – drum my fingers on the keyboard.

I’ve learned and I am still learning art, such as designing a poster, I hope y’all feed me back on the ones in this post.

I have many unfinished / unpublished words written down, that may never see the light of day and that’s okay because the joy for me is writing it down and having my jumbled thoughts finally make sense.

I am learning to be more intentional about my life because, time counts, words impact people and life is figured out on the go, without cheat codes or expos.

I am not ready to monetise the blog just yet, despite the offers, because I just want to write and be in my happy sane space and not be under pressure to put out something catchy every week. 

I am not happy to write just for the sake of writing and having something to say publicly – there’s no fun in that.

And most importantly, I have been able to connect with brilliant minds, and have had vulnerable things entrusted to me, because I made the brave move to share the mundane, overlooked and vulnerable stuff.

This is what blogging on a limb is really about for me, blogging and figuring it out in the way because no gift comes out fully mature.

My point is…

Whatever your gift is, please just start working on it. Draw up rough drafts and make as much of a mess as you need to make with it but just start. It will take time to master it, but start anyway. 

The things I know today, I would never have guessed on the side of being hesitant and too fearful to start the process. We don’t learn to swim by looking longingly at the waters. We learn by getting wet and messy, learning to hold our breaths a little longer than is comfortable, getting in the waters and training our bodies to perfect the strokes.

So Start.

Then get better.

Then become the expert you can potentially be.

Live your life on a limb.

Ps: thanks to the one who gifted me the book that added to a sequence of beautiful events that led here. The book continues to mean a lot to me. ?

Pps: it’s coincidental that today I read a beautifully worded piece that Chimamanda penned down and asked myself, how much work it must have taken her to master the art of writing so brilliantly.

Also, before you jump to my WhatsApp (which I appreciate), Kindly drop your feedbacks here. Gracias.