You don’t learn anything from drafts
Why you should publish more content, more often.
Whether it’s a blog post, a video, a podcast or any type of content. Hitting publish can be extremely daunting.
You can worry how others may react to it. You can worry it’s not polished enough. Or that it might fail. But, one of the of the most important lessons I’ve learned since I started writing is simply:
You don’t learn anything from drafts.
When you put yourself out there and embrace the vulnerably, that’s where the magic happens. That’s where you learn and improve your craft.
And the great thing about shipping content is that the more frequently you publish, the easier it gets. Eventually, making content becomes less of a “big” thing, and a part of your workflow. Then your mindset changes from:
“This is a special moment”
to
“This is what I do: I create, I publish, I put things out there.”
Play the long game.
Creating content is much like going to the gym. You don’t expect to work out once or twice and see the results you’ve always dreamed of. But once going to the gym becomes a part of your routine — and not a one off event — you start to see results.
The same is true in publishing — no matter your field. When you’re publishing and creating regularly, you are lifting those weights and eventually you’re going to build muscle mass, but if you expect it to happen in a day or a week or a month you’re kidding yourself.
The practice is really the key and that’s what you should be focused on, not the instant outcome or result.
If you only focus on results, it’s easy to give up. But when you focus on the practice and routine, it becomes easy to keep going.
Along the way you have to expect that you’re going to have many failures and a few successes, but the most important step is hitting publish. You don’t learn anything from drafts.
