Logic Told Me to be Realistic. My Gut Told Me I’d Succeed on Medium.

In a battle between reason and intuition, here’s who won.

Starting out in March of this year, was excited by the prospect of making money through writing about what I love on Medium.

But there were voices in my head telling me that dream was bullsh*t.

Logic told me not to get my hopes up. My gut told me I was onto something.

The last time my gut pushed me this hard, I was building my successful social media company.

I’d done it once. I knew I could do it again.

And by all definitions of the success I was working towards, I did do it.

I was hoping that in one year of being active on Medium, I could reach the equivalent of a small retainer in my company from Medium payouts, about $300.00 per month.

A humble financial goal to some, but in my eyes that was what I defined as success for me on this platform.

Within 50 days, after the April payout, I made $692.54.

As I move forward through May, I’m on track to bring in close to $1,000 from Medium — I never even imagined this could even be a possibility for me, until now.

There’s a lot to be said for listening to your gut, working your a** off and slowly plugging away at your goals.

I always make a habit of listening to my gut when it comes to business ventures. Why?

Because, like on Medium, it tends to pay off.

I pursued Medium in part because it seemed like a practical and doable avenue of income.

As an entrepreneur, I consider business ventures carefully before jumping in. I analyze the return on investment, calculate hourly rates, and measure the likelihood of any given venture succeeding.

I crunched the numbers, looked at my odds, and decided that 3 months was an appropriate time to figure out whether or not to continue with trying to monetize content on Medium.

That was my entrepreneur speaking.

Now, my inner entrepreneur and my inner writer have always been closely linked — they were the ones encouraging me to write my debut novel, and are always keeping an eye out for possibilities to further my writing career.

It would have been all too easy to just shrug off my intuitive feelings and counter them with pure logic.

“It’s unlikely I would make it on Medium — so few do!”

“Have you seen the stats, only 7–10% of MPP members, on any given month, make more than $100!”

“What makes me so special to think that I could make that happen for myself? The writing industry is so competitive… I probably shouldn’t waste my precious time by trying.”

Thing is, logic doesn’t always bring into account the consistency and hard work it could take over a longer period of time to achieve any given goal. It tends to immediately look from point A to Point B and make a judgement call of your odds.

Your intuition, on the other hand, tends to look at the bigger picture — that's why I take great care in listening to my gut.

But I didn’t just immediately trust my gut from adulthood — no, no.

I had to be brave enough to test out my gut to see how accurate it can be.

Time and time again, it has proven itself to be right on the money.

After testing it out in many scenarios I now know, with 90% certainty, that if it has a strong feeling about something, it’s probably right.

The other part of the equation was listening to the needs of my inner writer.

Finally, after months and months of feeling complacent in my business, I felt I had gotten my writing spark back by actively being on Medium.

And as many professional writers will tell you, writers need to exercise their muscles by writing every day.

I didn’t see this platform as a possibility to make a quick buck. If that’s your attitude, you’ll struggle in this community.

I saw, more than anything, an opportunity for me to improve my writing, and improve myself as a writer in general.

Practice is always important when it comes to honing your voice and bettering your craft.

Both the entrepreneur and writer in me gave the stamp of approval to move forward.

I don’t believe in toe-dipping.

A rather popular bit of advice from the startup world is:

If you’re going to fail, do it fast.

This acknowledges that not everything you do is going to work. And that’s not the point, anyways.

You’re going to fall on your face in life. The important thing isn’t avoiding the fall, it’s getting up every time you do fall. Because falling is a given for all of us.

This mantra encourages that if you’re going to find out that something isn’t going to work, find out as quickly as possible.

Because the sooner you realize it’s not working, the sooner you can scrap it and move on to the next idea to test.

The most effective way to possibly fail fast is to dive into your idea with everything you have and give it all you’ve got.

In business, and in life for that matter, we have to troubleshoot. We have to take risks if we want rewards, and not everything we try is going to pan out.

Jump in, give it all you’ve got, and see what happens.

My fiancé has always said to me:

I’d rather see you fail doing something you love than succeed at doing something you hate.

Final word.

In my experience, when my gut is telling me to go for it, and I sincerely give it my all, I generally find some measure of success along the way.

Half the battle is having the work ethic and guts to make it happen for yourself.

If you believe you can do it, who’s to say otherwise?

I’m not sure whether this “trusting your gut” thing is commonly used as a useful tool, but it has certainly worked for me.

If you’re looking to succeed at something which spark a passion in you, anything, then move towards it with grit, flexibility, consistency and determination.

Determination is definitely key, as the reasoning voices in your head are going to try and convince you that your efforts are a waste from the beginning.

This is your chance to prove them wrong.