The “crawl, walk or run” Entry

Welcome to Decemberrrrrr

Personally, December is my favorite month of the year, partly because Christmas is my favorite holiday, and also because I get excited at the prospect of endings and new beginnings. 

I love thinking back on how far I have come in the year. December is always a month of reflection and planning for the new year. As someone that loves planning, you can understand why that excites me. 

This past week, I was reminded of how far I have come in writing these entries. I started this newsletter as a consistency project. I wanted to have something I would do consistently and unfailingly for a whole year. I decided to start on the first Sunday of the year and this year the first Sunday was January 1st.

I was a little anxious about it. It took me 3 weeks of studying LinkedIn to even understand how to create a newsletter😂

I remember getting frustrated because all the tutorials I was seeing were showing me a part of LinkedIn that was not even on my phone😳

I tried updating the app so many times before I realized that the problem was not my phone, but that newsletters can only be created and uploaded on a laptop (I really need LinkedIn to change that). After probable a hundred tutorials, I created "The Growth Journal". 

I posted about it 2 weeks before I started, expecting to get some subscribers before the first post. When I tell you that for those 2 weeks I got a total of zero😂

By January 1st, I was wondering how I was supposed to post a newsletter to zero subscribers, who would see it? I almost changed my mind, but at the last minute I posted it anyways. 

Overcoming that anxiety was me crawling. 

On that first day and from the first post, I got over a hundred subscribers. I was shocked and happy that I had not listened to my anxiety and I had started anyways. 

That month of January ended up being a very unique start to the year for me. There were 2 weeks that I was unable to do anything, but I had made up my mind to put up 52 newsletters no matter what. So I pushed through, or should I say crawled through because it was a struggle. 

Then came the struggle of being unable to schedule my posts at the time (I am very happy LinkedIn has fixed this), which almost toyed with my consistency. By this time, I had graduated from crawling to walking, albeit slowly. 

I started the year counting every Sunday. I remember how excited I was when I got to the 10th entry. I never realized when it got easier, but it did. 

I graduated from crawling, to walking and now, to running. 

This is the 49th newsletter for the year 2023🎉

49th!!!

When I started in January I had no idea what I would be writing for 52 weeks 😂

But here we are.

I have something else I am working on right now and reflecting on my growth with this newsletter encouraged me in that aspect. It should encourage you  too. 

The beginning is just that, a start. It does not matter how you start. Beginnings only mean there is room for a greater story.

You cannot have a book without a first page. So write your first page. Your handwriting might be wobbly, you might have to do it afraid, according to a friend of mine, but by all means do it.

You might be crawling now. It will be hard oh, it will be very hard. But nonetheless, keep moving. As you gain momentum, you’ll find that it gets easier and easier. 

If you have been reading these entries since January, thank you. If you just joined this growth journey, thank you too. It has been exciting, and also a little scary, documenting my growth. But I am excited at how much bolder and braver I am now. 

I hope my growth has inspired your growth as well. I hope December 2023 does not mark the end of our growth but just the beginning.

RANDOM FACT OF THE WEEK: the fact for this week is a new word, Kaizen.  Kaizen is the Japanese word for improvement. Kaizen is a Japanese philosophy that encourages continuous growth and improvement. It encourages the idea of starting where you are and getting better and better. Basically, the idea of crawling to walking to running. I hope we all embrace the Kaizen philosophy in our personal lives.

December is a month of endless possibilities. You do not have to wait for January to begin. You can begin now.

I wish you an awesome week!

See you next Sunday!

Your trusty growth partner,

Dee❤