Truth be told, not in our wildest dreams would we have imagined being here today. Don't get me wrong. We are still far from having a successful blog but we are constantly improving and inching forward. If 2 years ago someone had told us we would be creating travel content on our very own website, we'd probably had laughed it out.
16 months ago, we started thetraveldeck.com. A travel website detailing our one year adventure around South East Asia. We started the blog months into our trip. And I remember spending an entire day just to write about where I've got to now. Those were definitely frustrating days. I just couldn't write something that sounded interesting once I read it. Everything sounded something like, bla,bla, bla,blablabla, boring anyway, to say the least.
The biggest problem back then lay in my personality. I'm a perfectionist person and if I'm gonna do something, I'd better make it right or may as well just do nothing. My brain functions in a weird way and just can't grasp the fact that I can't be perfect right from the very start. And that was the main reason I would take so long to write anything. I would literally delete whole paragraphs just for the fact other blogs had better writing than mine.
My turning point must have been while I was reading a post on some blog forum. And a quote has stuck with me for some reason it’s ingrained somewhere deep inside my weird functioning brain. The quote was something like, “when you hear that voice saying your work isn’t good, give the voice a name and tell it to piss off” and another said “and once you’ve shoved that voice away, write the best you can and just publish it”
Today, that voice has somehow gone away. Probably because I enjoy my writing more nowadays. However, the quote that helped me overcome the voice came to mind again while I was watching a YouTube video. One of YouTube’s most popular and skilled photographers too, Peter McKinnon lives by a mantra - Done is better than perfect. I guess what that means is, it’s better to do something that isn’t perfect rather than do nothing at all. And then use that same philosophy tomorrow and the end result will be better than today.
In some way, I have taken that approach which has undoubtedly helped overcome some issues related to my personalities and were constantly holding me back in blog-related terms.
Today, me and my girlfriend Jacqueline are striving to improve. And have finally got a hold of our little startup blog thanks to our persistence that has translated into improved skills which has boosted our confidence.
Hope you loved the read. If so just let us know.
James & Jacqueline of the thetraveldeck.com