Writing Challenges Shouldn’t Be About Pressure #36

They can be taken up once you have done your warm up!

Hello everyone! You’re reading the thirty-sixth issue of The Handwritten.

Seeing the most longed question in your exam feels such a relief. Because, well, you prepared the most for it.

But the panic comes when you find it hard to frame an answer. You don’t know where to begin. You do know every information related to it. “Oh, I know what to write, but how do I go about it?” You think to yourself. So your only resort here is to just start writing in whatever way and let the structure, the flow take care of itself.

Relatable?

Now come out of the exam hall scenario and think about all the overestimation you have had about writing.

30-days Thread Writing Challenges.

90-days LinkedIn Writing Challenges.

2 writing projects per week + 10 cold emails every day.

And so on…

Chances are if you have never worked on any long-form writing content and you have now taken up challenges under peer influence, you’re most likely to drop out or find yourself under pressure. You’ll learn less about other intricacies that come with challenges and more about how soon you’ll get over this challenge.

The similarity here is both for your exams and your challenges, all you got was passive information. Now passive information in that, you went through the overload of study material but you never practised presenting the answers. Similarly, you had a passive idea about your peers carrying out the challenges without you having any/much experience in writing long-form content.

The counter-argument would be that one learns by doing things. True that! And I am not at all suggesting not to take up challenges because you have no prior experience. Rather, all I mean is it gets so much better if you either start small or make more mistakes first before you jump straight into a long challenge.

The perk of the former is that you get acquainted with the whole process and it passes away more efficiently. The perk of the latter is that you get more flexibility to go by trial-and-error methods and once you do it, you don’t start with long challenges on an impulse.

What do you think?

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Let’s Discuss New Year Resolutions

Not you, Rajita? (eye rolls)

Oops, okay! No, I am not going to ask if you could stay true to your New Year's resolutions or what resolutions you have for 2024. But all I am going to say is you needn’t wait for the New Year to begin with something novel, crazy or weird. At the same time, if you do make New Year's resolutions, try having fun because the mere pressure of achieving them all brings less growth and more disappointment (been there done that!).

Wishing you a healthy and happy New Year. Take care of yourselves and your loved ones <3.

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Handwritten note for you <3

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Cya on January 11’ 24

-Rajita Chopra