Sometimes I look back on things that I have done in the past and wonder how the heck I did them.
I hate this feeling.
Sometimes you get the feeling of “wow. I can’t believe when that was hard for me. It’s second nature to me now.” I love that feeling. It’s a feeling of growth.
When I worked at a restaurant last year, I felt this in a huge way. When I first got there and was learning what all the food was, I was completely overloaded. I thought I would never learn how to do things well.
One month after working there though I was one of the top expos at the restaurant. I looked back on the me who didn’t know a thing and wondered how I could not know what everything was.
We experience this same thing growing up. Crawling is hard when we first start, but then just as soon as we get it, we’re running circles around all the babies who can only crawl, then we’re jumping. We can’t say two words together, then all of a sudden we’re talking in full sentences.
The feeling of progress is a great feeling.
Unfortunately, this isn’t always the feeling I experience. I’ve recently been looking back on some projects and previous blog posts of mine and realized they’re better than much of what I put out now.
It’s fine to have a few things to look back on and be extra proud of how they turned out but if you’re constantly looking back on things you previously accomplished as your current value-creation, you’re missing something.
Specifically, when I first started blogging, one of my main goals was to write for value, what I meant by this was to write in a way that wasn’t all about myself. Things that people outside my small circle of friends and family would be able to gain something from.
I did fairly well at this for awhile talking about topics I was learning about and studying but in the recent months, I’ve been so focused on getting posts out and it being late at night that I just write whatever comes to the top of my mind.
Sometimes that’s all I can do. And I’ve become better at writing about my thoughts, but I want to get back into writing for value. Not just for those who know me, but for anyone who reads my blog.