JENELLE CARTER

Don’t get ahead of yourself in the early stages

Jan 19, 2021 | Newsletter, Writing

When I was in the early stages of considering an email newsletter I was overwhelmed by the process. I spent hours researching different newsletter providers. I knew what the go-to ones were, but I wanted to make sure I found one that would give me the best bang for my figurative buck (I of course was looking for a free option to get started). I hummed and hawed and deliberated, and by doing so I spent a lot of time working on my newsletter while not writing a single word.

In my mind it makes sense to get the how sorted out before embarking on a new endeavour, but when starting new things, I often start by getting ahead of myself.

While it’s good to research and plan, my default way of thinking tends to be that I need to figure absolutely everything out ahead of time and have it all perfectly polished and presentable before I share it with the world. While there is a time and a place for that, more often than not it’s more beneficial to just get started and learn and adapt as I go, especially if I’m missing the whole point of what it is I’m setting out to do.

The now obvious realization is that especially in the beginning, it doesn’t matter which email platform I use.

It doesn’t matter how high the free subscriber count is on a plan if I have zero subscribers. It doesn’t matter which platform has the most features if I don’t have anything to publish. It doesn’t matter which one is the best if I don’t even know whether I’ll enjoy writing or not. In choosing the platform that was right for me, I was ironically looking for the one that was most conducive to my process, yet I didn’t even have a process.

Today, after a six-newsletter trial with the first platform I chose, I’m trying out a different one. Will I like it better? The only way to know is to test it out and see. Regardless of the outcome though, it’s the writing that’s the main thing anyway.

So don’t get ahead of yourself in the early stages, and in the words of Stephen Covey, “the main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing.”

Tagged: starting.

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