“To gain your own voice, you have to forget about having it heard.”
– Allen Ginsberg
I have blogged, mostly in French, for most of my adult life. Work during the day, blog on the evenings, this had long been the way. The practice taught me some of my most important lessons about the creative process, lessons that I am glad I learned early on.
When I create, I do it for myself first. My job as creator is to get a piece out to the world and move on to the next one. Sure, accolades are great but, be warned, they won’t feed your soul. Do it for the doing, do it because you can no longer hold it in. Your job is to pour your soul into the world. It’ll feel so good when you do.
From the moment I committed to my 37chocolates challenge, I knew that my videos would not reach a large audience. I was OK with that. My job was to review those 37 chocolates by Halloween 2015. Now, I won’t lie, there were times last summer I wondered why I was bothering about those reviews when nobody seemed to care. Right then, an anonymous commenter would share kind words on my YouTube channel or someone shared one my videos. Of course, this made me happy. But, ultimately, the motivation to go to 37 could only have come from within. So, remember, do it for the doing, and do it for yourself.