Medium, the Gym I Never Use

At the beginning of the year, my wife and I joined the millions of Americans who rushed to get a gym membership. This is the year we finally shape our bodies into what we’ve wanted for so long.

Traditional gyms don’t bother me because I have experience and build a personal routine. My issue is that I don’t go. On the other hand, my wife always seems to struggle with gyms.

She needs guidance in the gym, or she’ll sit there helplessly. I’m helplessly occupying space on a bench if Medium is a gym.

Here are my thoughts on Medium as a beginner.

The Medium Gym

After years of hearing my wife’s reasons for paying for a membership and not using it, I realized that these are my feelings regarding writing.

Writing is weight lifting with the mind, and Medium is the gym.

I have a Medium membership that I hardly use. In four years, I spent nearly $400 on a membership to a gym I rarely use, and sometimes I don’t even open Medium for months. I haven’t written an article in over a year.

I could write in a journal at home, but that is boring. I chose to write on Medium because of people watching, the endless amount of tools, and the competition.

For example, the only weight I have at home is twenty pounds. Twenty pounds is excellent, but I’ll never grow unless I add more weight. To succeed, I need to challenge myself.

I haven’t grown with Medium because I haven’t surpassed my initial gym goal of writing at least once a week.

I plan to use other writers as a competition as I would in the gym. If I see an older person at the gym jacking 145 pounds around like nothing, I at least need to do 150 pounds.

The same goes for writing. As a junior teacher, I can’t have elementary students write circles around me. If I ask my students to write a page in twenty minutes, I should be able to write two.

I’m not sure how to lift weights.

Most people can describe a gym. There’s usually a station to lift weights, treadmills, dumber versions of Peloton bikes, and death machines. Anyone can lift weights, but the goal is to lift enough to grow quickly and consistently without injury.

However, the gap is evident when the muscle heads put on a show.

How are people churning out multiple articles daily with an estimated read time of 12 minutes?

I spend a day staring at a blank screen stuck on the title. I waste two weeks finding the right 200 words to make a paragraph or two. Then, once I’m ready to post, I have to format the article to a publication’s standards, think of SEO, and categorize my writing into five subjects.

I struggle to decipher between what’s recyclable and what’s not.

Meanwhile, great Medium writers slap their articles into fancy websites to generate titles and subjects for their work and use Grammarly for proofreading.

Writers use tools to lift small weights so blank screens don’t bog them down.

Your muscles are huge, but please keep your shirt on.

Flexing every now and then is great, but please keep your shirt on. Medium is at its best when writers are at their best. Writers should tap into raw emotions, challenge biases and preconceived notions, and show what it means to be human.

I love writers who impact life and are not here solely to become viral or the next top writer on the platform. There was a time on Medium when “How to” viral articles were the only way to generate revenue. It appears things have changed, but the feeling hasn’t left me.

Great Medium writers are intimidating, but viral writers are even more so. Those who claim they’re making a solid income from Medium are equivalent to the obnoxious muscle heads at the gym.

Dude, why are you still here? That’s it. You’ve won….that big for no reason.

Kevin Hart

Granted, if you have to eat, you have to eat. Show your writer’s might and collect a paycheck.

However, seeing so many writers trying to generate revenue on Medium slowed my growth because I spent time trying to replicate their money-worthy articles.

When I realized my articles weren’t on their level. I skipped posting my writing and skipped the gym entirely.

Where are the people with smaller and developing muscles?

When my wife and I went to the gym, I would look back to see what she was doing. For most of my workout, my wife would spend most of her time sitting on a workout bench, paralyzed from either not knowing what to do or in shock at what the muscle heads can do.

When she looked around, there was no one else like her. She couldn’t see anyone on her level. There was no one else with the same lost expression as her. Everyone knew exactly what to do as if they lived and breathed the gym. No matter the age or body size of the individual, there were no beginners.

As a beginner, finding people on your level in Medium is very hard. Most people you see on your page have thousands of followers with hundreds of articles.

Unlike Myspace in the good ole days, you are not instantly given a true friend like Tom or the Microsoft Paperclip. Beginners need someone to pop in on them and provide them with advice to get off the bench.

Instead, beginners are left to their devices to answer many questions. Which Medium Facebook Group do I join? What does it mean to be curated? What are publications? What does it mean to be in the Medium Partner Program? How much money will my article make?

The platform is geared to show you the best of the best with some eccentric guest appearances.

Sometimes, I’d rather see the beginners. I’m looking for those in the kiddie pool, hoping to dip a toe in the big kid pool while still knowing they might drown.

Medium is a gym for growth.

I want to be a better writer. To get better, I have to go to the gym consistently. I need to push past the growing pains. I don’t want to because I hate writing.

I hate trying to take something from my head, focus on it, synthesize the information, and then mold it into a nice piece of work. Most importantly, I hate that it takes me weeks to write 500 words. I hate that over twenty unreleased posts are sitting in drafts because they’re “not ready,” according to my standards.

Like my wife, instead of getting reps, I spend more time staring at the pros in the gym. I tell myself I am miles from mediocre writers and light years from prolific ones.

I base my potential on the capabilities of others and fear I’ll never enter their atmosphere.

My fear is an excuse to avoid the gym. All I need to do is write and publish. It doesn’t matter if publications reject it. It doesn’t matter if the article is curated or not. Furthermore, who cares if my content doesn’t go viral and I never make a cent?

I aim to go to the gym and lift, write daily, and publish. If I stick to my plan, I’ll be a stronger writer than the day before.

Thanks for reading! I want to take the time out and give a big shout-out to all the beginners on Medium.

Please keep writing and respond with your Medium journey.

If you’re a Medium gym pro, please tell us your secrets!