When I published my first blog in 2014, I didn't even think about doing anniversary posts, let alone writing a 10 year anniversary blog post! And here I am writing one!
It all started 10 years ago.
Unfortunately, it doesn't mean that I've been actively writing for 10 years. For the past few years, the theme of the posts has been mostly about how I am NOT writing anything here. Every year the token anniversary post on this day kept the blog "active".
Last 5 years or so I'd take a pledge to be more active here and post 1 article before the steam runs out. It's not because I have nothing to write about or stopped travelling. On the contrary, I have a backlog of travel stories to write. I didn't write about the walk I did through remote Tibetan villages, tuktuk ride in Sri Lanka, the longest train ride in India, my time in Australia and so much more.
It could be plain procrastination, or change of priorities or something else. So I have to look deeper and find the root cause and address it, if I want to stay active here.
Even though I stayed inactive all this time, today I found some time to write this post because I had a solid deadline. 10 years ago this day I started the blog. If I have to write about it, this has to be done on the 1st of September. That was my deadline. I couldn't push it any further. It had to be done today. So maybe that is the trick.
Set a goal, set a deadline and stick with it. Maybe bring in accountability partners.
This is becoming a full-blown life coaching program. But I believe if staying active here is going to be my priority, this is what I need to do.
From what I learned from people who started blogging around the same time as I am, a lot of them have lost the initial spark, especially when "content creation" became a full-time vocation. It also forced them, myself included, to write in a certain way to please the SEO gods. For some reason, creativity and restraint don't go hand in hand and the easiest thing appears to be quitting rather than letting go of the restraint.
Sometimes the restraint is self imposed as well. People have certain ideas of how things need to be and by sticking to such belief systems, they end up moving away from what they should be doing.
If you dig deep, you'd find so many reasons. But the only thing that counts is that - are you taking the action or not.
I can sit around, introspect, write about it and try to find the root cause. But even when I find the reason, what I would need to do is, sit down and write a blog post, to solve the problem.
Since I am writing all this here and still trying to make this blog active means only one thing, I want to keep this space active. So the only action that aligns with this intention is to sit down and write without any restraints.
What I have to do is take that first step, just like my very first post said.
So here is my goal and deadline for the next post. I will have my next post ready before 10th Sep 2024 and I will add a footnote in all my future posts with an idea about my next post, so that it will create a chain of actions.
Also, if you are someone who wants to get back to blogging, reach out. We could be accountability partners.
So that is all about 10 year anniversary of "Trablogger". If you're reading this, thank you for your support.
Next Post : Art, Kiarostami and MONA, Deadline 10th Sep 2024
