For months, maybe even years if I’m being honest, I have been focusing my main efforts on becoming a well known brand in writing and coaching. Trying to grow an online following instead of focusing more on the art of actually writing itself. I’ve spent far too much time and energy trying to figure out how to grow followings on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and other platforms instead of concentrating on just building a portfolio of useful, meaningful work and “growing organically” as my good friend Hazel would say.

Of course I’ve been adding what I’d like to consider as interesting content and things I believe in but it’s been too focused on doing it for the sake of “you have to post regularly in order to grow” advice from all the established online gurus already out there, instead of being true to myself and fine tuning the full helpful message I believe I have in me to share.

I’m sad to say recently in my lack of patience and hunger to reach as many people as possible I’ve even pushed it onto people I thought would like it just to try to widen the audience that can see my work. I just tried asking a few for their opinion on the page but that didn’t work out particularly well with silence being the general reply. I thought by getting more people to like my page or follow my account I’d have a larger audience for recognition and support but it turns out, for whatever reason, some people cannot connect with what I’m doing. It may be the way I’ve branded it isn’t engaging enough for some to check it out or maybe it’s just too much of a taboo subject that they want nothing to do with it.

Turns out that the lack of response for feedback and the slow pace of growth has actually been a real blessing in disguise as its made me sit up and review what I’m doing and how I’m doing it. I have been allowing these disappointments to outweigh the enjoyment, and when the fun stops the alarms bells rightly go off.

This made me realise that I’ve been going about this entirely the wrong way … blindly chasing numbers instead of quality. That’s not to say I don’t want to help people, that’s still my major goal but focusing mainly on growing followings rather than doing what I enjoy is so demoralising that I need to change the game plan before I quit altogether.

I stand by my long-term plan of trying to reach people to help them get over any insecurities or anxiety they have but I’m going to have to go about it in a more natural, progressive way that makes the whole process enjoyable. More writing substantial material that will fit in well with the upcoming book and any future talks, and less posting images and quotes just because the experts say to grow an audience you need to do that. I’ll just be myself, stick to my morals and see where it takes me.

The amount of stuff I share will definitely drop (thank god for that some might say) but the quality of what I do actually write and share will be greatly increased.

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One final note, to all the people reading this (only shared on BYP page so it’ll be a limited number) and actually taking the time to read this far into the post … you are all genuinely, amazingly supportive people and I love you for it. The comments and likes people have given have been so encouraging. You have all been amazing, I can’t thank you enough.

So please bear with me, I’m new to this game but hopefully I can push on from here and I can share stuff that you find an interesting read or some stuff that will help you or someone you know make their life better in some way.

Thanks as always,

A very grateful Scott J