How I plan to post consistently on Substack

Even when I shouldn't be able to. Screw what's realistic and follow the passion.

Photo by Darius Bashar on Unsplash

I just read

Jane Ratcliffe

’s brilliant interview with

Emma Gannon

and it’s the first time that I realize how I’ve been able to produce and achieve a lot of things in relatively few years.

I’m not as much of a perfectionist as I always thought I was. I’m in fact mind-blown about this realisation.

Thinking further, I’m a perfectionist so far as to wanting to always do my best. I want to be the best wife, writer, artist, teacher, leader and of course MOTHER that I can be. Sometimes to the point of overwhelming myself where I never feel like what I do is enough.

Paradoxically, I have the same approach to put things out there as

Emma Gannon

. I don’t delve on content too much, I just hit publish and it’s out. This has gotten further enhanced by motherhood, where you simply have no time to think too much if you are to advance at all.

Disclaimer: I did delve on what to call this publication (Follow your gut) for a veeeery long time to be me. Now that it’s out I don’t want to live in the typical entrepreneurial regret of wishing I had started sooner… Better just get on with it and write. We’re here now. It’s better than later.

If there’s anything growing an online art business with significant online presence (200k followers on Instagram; almost 200k followers and 10million monthly views on Pinterest; 30k+ followers on Youtube) has taught me, it’s this:

You never know which post will go viral or be seen by the right people and push you to the next level of your career. You just have to keep posting.

The only way to be certain to never reach the next level, is to not publish. This means that to publish imperfect posts still increases your chance to succeed and reach your goals by 100%.

Amazing, right?!

It’s incredibly comforting to think that something is better nothing. Simply to do is, in fact, enough.

I’m also of the mentality that everything you make isn’t going to be your best work, because that’s simply humanly impossible. For example, I don’t love all my embroidery patterns equally. That doesn’t mean that all of them aren’t important or have their place. Each work, each post, bring you one step closer to excellence. Furthermore, art is subjective to the viewer (or reader), which means that my favourite piece may not be yours and vice versa.

As artists and creatives, we’re continuously on a journey of self-exploration and learning, which makes perfection even less attainable (or desirable).

Imagine if you one day reach the stage of being “perfect”. How dull. Now you can’t keep on practising and experimenting for the pure joy of it, because there wouldn’t be any motivation to improve left. From this perspective I would never want to reach perfection.

As I write this I almost laugh internally. How I wish I could apply this mindset to motherhood as well. I’m not alone in wanting to be a great mum so badly that I overwhelm myself.

So let’s remind all of us awesome mothers: You’re a great mum and so am I. It’s not the amount of Christmas decoration you set up this year that will change that. POINT TAKEN.

One step at the time

If you have a goal, the only way to advance is to consistently take one step after the other. Focus on the here and now rather than a blown up overwhelming goal that feels unreachable in the present.

Most goals feel unreachable because we look at the end destination and recognise that there’s a long way to go. Too long to feel realistic to ever happen. DAMN, I also dream to have 1000 paid readers like

Emma Gannon

. But that doesn’t feel realistic… Or?!

Screw realistic.

If we are to only follow what’s realistic nothing interesting would ever happen. Realistic is not what builds the stories worth telling. Personally, I’ve been on a mission since the day I graduated high school to seek out stories to tell.

I want to be someone who knows because I did it; not because I heard it. There’s responsibility and action in that. It’s scary. It’s difficult. But it’s also exciting and rewarding. It’s like living with a blank canvas ahead of you; Anything can happen.

Instead of focusing on all the artworks I want to make or books I want to write (BIG PROJECTS), I focus on the small incremental texts that I can do today. I am currently only able to write while breastfeeding, so that’s the time I get. I’m not in a stage of life where I can afford to re-write and edit too much, so the only way to move forward is to go back to the principle of “Something is better than nothing”.

As a sweet ending I also realise the beautiful link between “just do it” and my own publication “Follow your gut”. It’s true: I’m trying to just follow my gut, which urges me to write more. To write is a way to process your internal life and make more sense of it all, even when things feel nonsensical.

Thanks for reading,
Elin x

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