Srishti Kumari

Tag: writing

  • Show Up

    Because You Need To

    Photo by Brett Jordan on Unsplash

    Sometimes, you only need to show up. Yes, that’s it. Just show up. Show up, because you owe that to yourself. No matter when your day starts and when it ends, show up for that one thing, for at least that one hour you need to.

    Many times, we don’t need inspiration or motivation, but momentum – the one thing that makes you sit and do your work, and get it done without thinking much about your relevance in this universe. Yep, it’s true!

    And I have started quietly loving this version of mine (very recent though), and my loved ones, where they have such clarity of their goals that whatever happens throughout the day, including the emotional ups and downs, they show up. They just show up when they are required to without any fuss.

    You want to read more? Read a few pages, or just a single page every day from any book you want to read and explore. Just one page every day. I’m pretty sure you have that much time.

    You want to write more? Do you feel like you have nothing to write when you sit in front of your laptop? Fine. Start with how your day has been so far. Just start it. Scribble the story, and finish your rough draft. Now you have a draft ready to edit and publish later.

    I know, you have 100s of ideas, headlines, storylines, and content pieces saved in your Google Docs, in your Notes, in your LinkedIn and Instagram saves, and in your Medium and Substack reading list. Oh, and the one in your private WhatsApp chat (with yourself)!

    My dear writing friend, I know you have all of these, and you still wait for inspiration. You need action. Just start scribbling that one blog piece, and the story will come to you. Show up for the sake of your sanity. Please!

    Has health gone downhill? Want to be fitter and more confident? Then show up. Move your body. Outdoor walk, indoor walk, walk on treadmill, deep breathing exercises, basic beginner-level cardio & strength training, dance workout – do anything in the world you can do.

    Just do it. Do it at least for half an hour 4 times a week. It won’t give you a celebrity-like figure, but it will break your inertia, your initial resistance, your lifelong wait for motivation, and you will finally feel the process happening through you.

    When a few pages read every day brings you to page no 300 in a 400-page book, or when even 30 minutes of everyday walk builds your discipline and mental strength to keep going on in this journey ahead within a month, then you actively start to focus on the momentum, not motivation.

    Yes, motivation is important. But choosing to do the things that move the needle, that’s a game-changer. And I can say this from my experience that sometimes doing less is more – just make sure that you show up for the things that get you into the flow you need to be in.

    Inspirational content is superb to watch, but small changes made every day, out of clarity and intention, can inspire like a dozen motivational talks can never.

    I hope you got my point.

    Note: This piece was originally written for my LinkedIn post, but it exceeded the character limit, as you can see, so I edited and shortened my LinkedIn post a bit, and this is the original version.

    I hope you found it useful.

  • Gazillion Stories Everywhere

    And not a single word to write!

    Photo by Murat on Unsplash

    Yeah, at least that’s how I feel sometimes. I feel like there are so many stories, so much happening around, there are a lot more themes and topics I can write on, experiment with, and when I sit down to write, I feel like I have nothing to write. But I do know that it’s not true. My feelings are not the fact.

    After all, this is my blog, my space, and I can think, write, scribble, and publish about anything and everything under the sun. Right?

    I can write about my early mornings, my simple yet very fulfilling morning routine, my night time routine, the books I am reading, the articles I read, the shows I watch, my observations, the things I like and don’t like, about my childhood memories, about my hostel days, about childhood friendships, about my teenage years, about my college days, about my experiences in delhi, about the changes I see that weren’t that visible a decade ago, about finding life beautiful and meaningful at its most simple things, about aspirations, about goals, about inner growth journey, about many, many, many, many, and really many things. And I am happy that I can.

    Just a small temporary problem here. Sometimes when I sit in front of my laptop, I feel my inspiration, ideas, creativity, and then very soon, self-discipline kind of takes a day or two off. Yeah, sometimes I really feel it happens.

    It’s fine.

    Its temporaray. We will get along with each other very well.

    Till then, I will write/type whatever I can.

    Happy writing to me!

    Take care.

  • Write About The Easy Things

    Please.

    Photo by Vitaly Gariev on Unsplash

    You know, I feel, and I am really thinking about this a bit differently, and sincerely. When it comes to writing, especially the online writing and making a really good amount of money out of it, or creating and building your successful online writing business, we think, focus, read, and research a lot more about the client’s needs, the business needs, the brand needs, and the business side of our craft. We forget why we started it in the first place.

    Our LinkedIn posts should be the best. Our LinkedIn articles should be of premium quality. Our medium writing has to be of very, very good quality, and our Instagram posts should be of premium aesthetics. And while all of these personal expectations and professional goals are important and good to set and achieve, we forget that writing doesn’t only mean the work we do for the premium B2B clients, the agency we are working with, and the freelance gigs that are literally making us financially free and independent.

    Yes, we have to write thoughtfully to build our personal brand online. Yes, we have to deep dive and research, and write the B2B articles, the blog posts, the LinkedIn posts, and all of that business writing thing that we are supposed to. No doubt we need to.

    But what about us? What about you, my friend? What? What about your connection, your relationship with the solitary aspect of thinking, scribbling, writing, reading, writing sometimes in a diary, sometimes online, and publishing – not each piece is published to get the likes and appreciation, some pieces are the proof of your spark inside. And that’s enough.

    Don’t lose that spark. Please. Before any creative work and designation pulls out your creativity from your soul, remember those first days when you first started scribbling, spending time with your thoughts, with your feelings in solitude, and your diary was there to listen to everything you had to share.

    For that first diary, for those first days, for that spark, for this wonderful gift of your life, write! Please write. Write about your days – good days, bad days, ugly days, miracles, everything. Write about your morning breakfast, write about your evening chai, write about your favourite season, write about your childhood days, write about your friends, write about your blessings, write about your embarrassments, write about your love, write about your healing, write about your favourite nook and corner in this world, just write about it, my friend. Please write, because you deserve to live too.

    Amidst all the business, technical, SEO, branding, social media, and your premium ghostwriting projects, don’t forget to fill your own cup and share the quirky moments from your story. Don’t worry about the likes, shares, or engagement.

    Sanity is the real vanity.

    May divine bless you with success when your stories get appreciated by millions of people worldwide, along with the deep love inside you to write for the sake of writing – from the heart!

    Because the true power lies in that deep love, I believe. You don’t need to be performative here; you just need to perform, to show up, for your own sanity. And that is, my friend, a love language, a form of self-care, isn’t it?

    Now go and live.

    Live again. Write again.

    Go easy. Write easy.

  • The Gift of Being Unseen

    Or, thoda kam seen

    Photo by Swello on Unsplash

    You know, yesterday, I was going through my LinkedIn, and I read a post that really made me think and see things a bit differently. This post came in my feed because I am following someone who writes and publishes regularly on LinkedIn on various topics, in various tones, and I love her writing as a reader.

    Yesterday, she had commented on this post – the post I am talking about, and that’s how I got to see the post on my feed.

    And the gist of the post was, what I got at least is, you know, we crib about not getting enough likes, weak online presence, and shallow engagements online, and then we try to change our content strategy to fix everything. But what if, instead of taking this online dip negatively, we start enjoying the algorithm changes (if you believe that’s the case for the dip anyway).

    Let’s say you are posting on LinkedIn regularly and still seeing the numbers not going upward. Fine. Now, while you are cribbing about it and thinking of stopping posting, what if you take this as an opportunity to experiment? Right now, you can tweak, modify, audit, edit, try new forms, and sizes of content aligned with your brand. You can, for a few days, just take it lightly and have fun with it – see, the experiment will make you free from control, and it will eventually allow you to be more creative, flexible, and better with your work.

    I can understand that your clients’ account is your job, but experimenting with and trying the second method will only strengthen the understanding and expectations for both parties.

    Each changing point, each feedback is a data point. And data points change. The willingness to try, the curiosity to understand the gaps in storytelling, combined with the courage to take the risk, can bring the good, better, and maybe best in the long term.

    And if it’s your personal account, and you are trying to build an online presence, visibility, and a credible and premium personal brand online, then please go ahead and take risks. Numbers will go up and down. Even people with 4 lakhs and 5 lakhs followers sometimes lose lakhs of followers in a month. That’s totally fine.

    Your clarity, your creativity, your depth, your thought process, your ideas, your story, your history, your vision, your work process, your unique ways to keep going and taking pause whenever you need – in short, it’s you and your values that are going to attract those 100 true fans and the superb community you deserve. And when they show up, each like, dislike, impression, views, dips, everything will make sense to you.

    Till then, just focus on finding your voice – your unique, original, incredible, powerful voice and narratives you have to share with everyone. The rest will be taken care of.

    Happy experimenting. Happy exploring.

  • Some Days, I Feel A Bit Clueless

    And maybe that’s okay.

    Photo by Laura Chouette on Unsplash

    Some days, like today, I feel a bit clueless. I mean, I have my tasks to do. My to-do task list for the next 10 days is kept in front of me. And I know the importance of this work very well.

    I have to write, prepare, and schedule a few – actually a lot of pieces for my blog, write a few medium articles, prepare a good amount of LinkedIn pieces, and all of this has to be completed on time. All of the writing, editing, proofreading, scheduling, publishing – everything is part of my plan to make my writing, my stories, my articles more visible online to create a valuable and reliable personal brand for myself in the long run.

    And this bigger picture and purpose make it even more important for me to show up. But I feel that “no two days will ever be the same” is actually a reminder for me. You know, I created 9 blog post pieces and 1 LinkedIn post – a total of 10 stories just the day before yesterday. And I can’t tell you how amazing I felt. I gave myself the freedom to just write the stories that come to my mind for the blog you are reading now, and boom! I happily, very happily, wrote nine stories in a single day – within 8 hours. The drafts have been saved, and I am editing and publishing them with each coming day.

    But yesterday, I didn’t feel that energy. And the maximum I managed to do was to edit two drafts and publish them. And, I am fine with it. I still have the next ten days to complete my tasks, and it’s fine.

    But today, oh god! Today, I have opened my laptop at 3:30 pm – sooooooooo late! And that too, after convincing myself enough that there’s no need to make it perfect, just show up! And that is what I am doing right now. Just showing up.

    And if you will get to know that this particular writing is the third one in my effort to show up today, and I have already scribbled and saved two drafts, then maybe you will understand the power of showing up. At least I am convinced by the power of just showing up. Good work, better work, best work, excellent work, extraordinary performance – everything will come, once you make it a point to show up. Show up unprepared. Show up with confusion. Show up with half-baked stories. Show up with a clueless feeling you have with you since morning. Just show up.

    Maybe you were clueless because some days, life decides to make you show up first and let the cluelessness fade away in the light of the day. Maybe. Who knows!

    That’s why I think, some days, it’s ok to feel a bit clueless. I think our cluelessness comes to softly nudge us towards something better. And for me, it was to show up. It was, for me, to open my laptop and write six pieces – six personal stories/ blog pieces/ blog posts without too much thinking, and see, it’s been 1 hour and 20 minutes, and I am already about to finish my third story.

    Yeah, only drafts, not the edited, proofread, polished one. Just drafts. And that works.

    Taking small steps every day to build the life, career, finances, and everything of your dreams sometimes may also feel like this. Just remember, you are only feeling clueless. You are not clueless. Go to your why. Go to your what. And figure out your how for today. You can do it. I believe in you.

    Show up happily. Show up peacefully. Show up cluelessly. That’s okay. Just show up!

    Take care.