Hi ,

Have you ever felt like your voice is being drowned out by the people around you? Do you feel intimidated by the amount of content that people are sharing and feel like you have to constantly do more and more?

I know I have.

As a writer and a content creator, it gets harder when I see various news websites resorting to using click baits and jumping on the bandwagon to write about gossips and controversial news for the sake of views. Suraya, from Ringgit oh Ringgit, sums this up quite nicely in her tweet last year.

It can be super demotivating when you work so hard to publish a piece of writing but it does not get the traction that you need. At one point, you might feel like giving up, because it doesn't feel like things would get anywhere in the near future.

I recently watched a video that one of my LinkedIn connections made with a storyteller from Nigeria, Lindsay Emeka Eke. As a writer and aspiring author, I honestly resonate with what Lindsay talked about in the session. And, as always, I want to share some of that learning with you - to help you in finding your own voice in this world.

Your content does not have to resonate with everybody. You just have to resonate with one person.

We live in a time where people strive to create the next viral content - to start a new trend and be the next shiny thing on social media. While going viral can certainly help in terms of reaching out to a broader audience, sometimes it can make us lose our focus on what is important - the actual message that we want to share.

Getting visibility in this social media age is extremely hard. 4 petabytes of data are created on Facebook and 500 million tweets are sent every day (source). Everyone is churning out new content everywhere, and trying to get noticed by others among the sea of information can be hard.

But that's the thing - gaining visibility is not supposed to be easy. It takes time to nurture and build that connection with your audience. Growing your network is not something that you can accomplish within a day or two - or even a year. It takes months after months and years after years of being consistent with your work, starting from one small post to another day after day.

Focus on one day at a time.

This newsletter is now a little over 2 years old. When I first started in December 2018, I had a small goal - to grow to 50 subscribers by the end of 2019. I was highly dependent on the connections that I already have - people who read my blog and followed me on social media.

Over time, it grew steadily and we are now at around 1,700 subscribers. Out of that number, only a very small number of you are here with no prior connection or engagement with me (which is kind of amazing, to be honest!). The majority of you either know me personally or have engaged with me one way or another, such as through a workshop or from my social media.

Of course, I would love for the numbers to grow exponentially and reach out to a lot more people out there. But I also know that I rather focus on actually connecting with the people that I already have (like you!) and improving my writing so that I can provide better content to you.

Remind yourself the reason why you started.

Whenever I feel intimidated by the amount of content I see on my feed, or if I ever doubt my ability to produce useful content, I will always take a step back and remind myself of the reason why I started this whole journey.

I did not start writing for the sake of being viral. I never intended my writing to be shared endlessly on social media, nor do I intend on making money out of it. But instead, I write for the sake of writing itself. I write because it is a calling - an inner voice that tells me to share my story and my voice out with the world.

And that is all that matters to me - the ability to create content and share it with the world. Anything else (having it read by others, etc) are just extra perks that come along with it.

Find your own voice.

So, I urge you. Find your voice, whatever it is, and share it with the world. Find a platform that works for you, be it blogging, creating videos, or anything in between. Share your stories with the world, because there is only one you in the world, and you are too special to let your voice be drowned by others around you.

Until I see you again in two weeks' time - I wish you all the very best in what you do. Stay safe, take care, and stay awesome!

p/s - Head's up, a new vlog is coming out in the next week. Subscribe to my YouTube channel to be the first to find out!

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Love,

Nazu xx