Reasons Not to Start This Substack

Calling my inner critic's bluff

• You’re not qualified.

• You’re adding to the noise.

• You don’t have anything to say.

• You’ll say something you regret.

• You’re just looking for attention.

• You’re not going to help anyone.

• You’ll say something that hurts people.

• If no one responds you’ll feel rejected.

• If lots of people respond you’ll feel prideful…

• …and you’ll worry you can’t repeat your success.

• You’ll become addicted to checking in for validation.

• You might actually feel satisfied and you don’t deserve that.

Heard.

Now, what’s true?

• You have something to give.

• What’s inside is not just for you.

• Writing reminds you of the good you forget you already know.

• By reminding yourself, it awakens good longings dormant in others.

• Through the labor pains of writing, you will birth something that brings you joy and gives others hope.

• Even if the labor pains turn out to be a bowel movement and what you produce is excrement, you’ll at least have some relief.

• You don’t have to publish everything you write, but knowing that you will publish at least gives you a reason to write.

• After you’ve written something—an essay, a song—more times than not and no matter how painful the struggle, you have that settled sense that you did what you were made to do.

• Writing is way for you to lean into life and feel more alive. And when you feel more alive, you are able to show up more fully to the people that matter in the ways that matter—with grater presence, genuine interest, and unstrained love.