If you google how to have a successful blog or online presence, the one piece of advice you will find more than others, at least in my experience, is “be an expert.”
You can find “how to be an expert fast” help if you’re not sure how. There are experts on it.
This is when I first started getting really bored with blogging. I don’t want to be an expert. Trying to be an expert is boring. Let someone else do it. I just want to be me. A person who has absolutely no idea what I’m doing on any given day. Who wants to laugh at mistakes and grumble about the frustrations and cheer at victories. A person who doesn’t really want to tell you how to do anything (except when I actually do know what I’m talking about and it may be of some benefit.) I like the ugly truth of it all and I don’t want to pretend like it isn’t a daily struggle. I need the full spectrum of the experience.
Be an expert?. Fuhgetaboutit.
I want to be the kid at the front of the class taking it all in. And sometimes the bratty kid in the back who just wants to shake things up because, “who said?”
And really, who said? Blogs became big because it was a way to connect with people, not because they were telling people what to do. Then money got involved and things changed. Suddenly it was all about the influencers and what they could give companies. Meh. I want to make a bit of money off my blog if I can, no doubt, but that’s never been my first priority.
I’ve always called my blog, “sketchbook.” That was intentional. I didn’t want it to be a polished, framed and hung piece of art. I want to be able to read through it and see my journey and progress and how it’s all been shaped. Sketchbooks are a thing of practice and growth and messing up and making things unintentionally wonderful. Perfect isn’t the goal. Sketchbooks are part of the process, not the end product.
Trying to be an expert, I bored myself to tears. Although, I do love to hear myself talk and having an opinion is my birthright, I’m made to be the student.
I forget this all the time. Maybe I’ve never made the full realization because being an expert sounds so sexy and tempting. In reality, it is just block inducing. It silences and bleaches the process of anything truly valuable to me.
It’s a battle between the perfectionism and self-doubt that was nurtured and the nature of who I am in spite of it. The part of me that needs to grow and get out of my comfort zone as soon as I get in it. Learning is fun. Making mistakes is part of learning.
The struggle may never end, but I hope the perfectionism gets weaker with each battle.