100 followers: A passing cloud
It’s not taking you where you want to be
Many people wrote about getting 100+ followers on medium. I got it recently too. So, I was looking to share my experience and realized that there are numerous posts about how to get 100 followers.
I never focused totally on getting 100 followers (Took me less than a month: from Feb 23 to 21 Mar 2022). I do not deny that getting 100 followers is important. It is important because you want to scale up your reachability and only when you reach more people, you can get their opinions, which improves you further.
Different people, different approach
You cannot compare apples with oranges. If it takes one month for you, that’s good. If it takes a two, that’s fine too. Some people could do it in 24 hours. That’s great.
Following the trend, comparing yourself with others, questioning your self-worth makes you hate Medium. Come on, we are here in this platform to write, not hate ourselves or Medium. That’s the mistake I made initially.
I used to write something that I thought was interesting and expected to become successful overnight. It turned out to be a joke and I lost interest in Medium partially.
Simon Sinek, you’re a genius
One day, I do not remember when, I saw a video of Simon Sinek. In that video he said something, which I relate very closely to my heart, as below. It’s a bit long but it is worth the read. Trust me.
If you go to the gym and you come home and look into the mirror, you’ll see nothing. And if you go to the gym the next day, and you come back and you look in the mirror, you will see nothing. Right? So clearly, there’s no results, can’t be measured, it must not be effective. So we quit. Right?
Or, if you fundamentally believe that this is the right course of action, and you stick with it, like in a relationship: “I bought her flowers and I wished her a happy birthday, and she doesn’t love me” clearly I’ll give up. You commit yourself to the regime, the exercise.
You can screw it up. You can eat chocolate cake one day, and you can skip a day or two, you know. It allows for that.
But if you stick with it consistently I’m not exactly sure what day, but I know for sure you’ll start getting into shape. I know it. And the same with the relationship. — Simon Sinek
I was struggling to write after my first post as I was expecting a bit too much after my first post. The sky became clear after listening to Simon.
So, I said to myself, “Let’s do it. Forget the number of followers I have, forget the number of claps for my posts, I will write. If I won’t be successful, that’s fine. I love writing anyway.”
Let the content do the talking
I relate to one of my recent posts on writing as few words as possible. Here it goes.
I always thought I should have rich information that is logically correct and that’s the only way to become a good writer. It is important to get your facts right. But anyone can get their facts right. Google can get its facts right. But that does not make google a good writer.
Boils down to learning
If people want to know about news, then find it on the internet. If they want to develop a skill, they can join EdX or any other course online. Why should they read your content?
It boils down to learning from the facts that you gather and concisely presenting them. If you cannot teach people anything, if you cannot provide them with insights, if you are unable to make your content a joy to read, you are probably not adding any value.
At the same time, if they need to spend many minutes to re-read your content and interpret it, you are making their life difficult.
Bottom line: Forget about 100 followers and keep writing. Eventually, you will get it. It's just a passing cloud in your writer's Journey. Focus on what you are writing with an emphasis on the content.
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