The Sad Truth About Taking a Break from Medium

Are your earnings being affected by whether you show up every day?

I took a break from writing on Medium for a whole week, but the truth I discovered about my stats later, was really unexpected. It made me upset to see how much my earnings were affected when I didn’t show up every day.

Without realizing it, I had started to burn out, and my mind and body were both starting to tell me so. I had been writing multiple stories, every single day for almost 3 months.

Up until this past week, I’d been reluctant to take a real break. Even when I went and spent a couple of days at the beach, I still ended up writing on Medium, and engaging on the platform the whole time.

But there was a distressing story in the news this week, and it made me come to my senses.

A Professional Needs a Break

When I heard the news about gymnast Simone Biles puling out of the Tokyo Olympics, I felt a sadness for her. I can only imagine what it must feel like to work so hard and have something be just within your reach, only to let it slip through your fingers.

Simone Biles was the favorite and expected to win several gold medals for the games she would have been competing in.

But she withdrew before the vault event. According to ESPN, Biles explained by saying she had: “…a little bit of the twisties…” a phenomenon that can occur with gymnasts, where they have the feeling of getting lost in the air.

I for one, applaud her for bravely admitting that her: “…mind and body are simply not in sync.”

If she wasn’t able to trust herself to compete, I feel she made the right call, for herself and for her team. It’s an inspiration to others to know that it’s okay to not be okay.

Too often in life, we don’t do what we need to do to safeguard our mental health. This is not just a thing with athletes, but also with artists and other creative types, including writers.

Taking a Medium Break

Some Medium writers like myself tend to allow thoughts about obligations, responsibilities, and deadlines all take priority over our mental and even physical health and well being.

In some cases, those obligations, responsibilities, and deadlines are self-imposed, and sometimes, those are the worst kind.

Unlike Simone Biles, who had real pressures on her, due to her unique situation, my pressures were the ones I put on myself.

I was fortunate to be able to assess my circumstances, and adjust my writing schedule and routine, without it affecting anyone but me.

So after writing everyday, and staying up all night, sometimes consecutive nights in a row, I forced myself to take a break from writing and publishing stories on Medium for a whole week.

Whenever I went online during the week, I only glanced at the number of my Medium notifications. This is the little bell icon next to your image, and it lets you know how many people have recently interacted with you.

The number of notifications can usually be a good indication of how much exposure your stories have recently received.

Since I made a decision not to be active for a week, I also decided not to allow myself to respond to any notifications from new followers or existing followers who left comments.

To my surprise and disbelief, over the course of the week, the number of notifications went down drastically. So naturally it prompted me to check my stats, including my earnings. Yep — everything was down.

Going Forward after a Break

I’d be lying if I said this news wasn’t troublesome to me. It bothers me to think that I have this huge catalog of stories, but I still can’t step away for a breather, without somehow losing ground.

I love engaging with followers and other writers on Medium. This is evident by the current number of “Responses” I’ve made, which is now up to 527.

But I refuse to accept that I need to be on Medium every single day, writing, publishing, responding and killing myself, trying to make myself visible.

Anyone who tells you to write every day, and keep churning out stories is not giving you the best writing advice. As my newest 5 story series will bring out, this is simply not enough and it’s not the answer to how to earn more.

If it wasn’t for the fact that I took a week off, I would have never realized the truth. Now that I’ve had my break; going forward, I see the important benefit of stepping away to get clarity.

For one thing, I can admit to myself that I want to make it to the Top Writer status that somehow we’ve all started thirsting for. That’s why I’ve been writing and publishing stories like a mad woman.

But now, I refuse to kill myself in the process. My mental and physical health are too important for me to do that.

If that means I come back from a break, more determined and more productive than ever, then that’s a good thing. Just as long as I remember to stop, breathe, and take another break, each and every time I need one, so I don’t ever lose my perspective.

Analyzing Stories While on Break

While I may have stayed away from interacting during the week, and publishing stories on Medium, I still visited the website.

On various occasions, I found myself looking at the multitude of titles I’ve written over the past couple of months.

I even went back and read several of my stories; trying to understand what I could be doing wrong, to not have my stats reflect my hard work.

Do you ever feel like what you’re putting out and what you’re getting back, just don’t seem to add up?

I actually made a lot of vital discoveries about the large catalog of stories I’ve written and published since May of this year. So my reluctance to write or publish anything this past week, and to take a break from Medium turned out to be good for me.

Not only did I get a chance to get some perspective on things and about the site, but it also gave me time to really scrutinize, as well as analyze my existing stories.

What’s even better, I know exactly what I need to do to write future stories to increase story engagement, and ultimately, story earnings.

That is why I wrote a whole 5 story series. In the stories, I talk about the most important revelations I had, regarding the stories I wrote, which ones earn me the most money, and why.

Here are the titles, if you want to learn everything I discovered about writing stories and earning money here on Medium.

These titles will help you understand how your stories earn, and what to write to earn you more.

Final Thoughts

When I ease back into my writing routine this coming week, my plan is to go about things a lot differently.

I’ll be taking a different approach to the type of stories I write, and I’ll be using the information contained in the story titles you see below.

But one thing I won’t be doing is writing all day, every day. Even if I decide to write every day, I’ll limit my output to one story, and make sure to carve time out for myself.

I think I’ll also take a different approach to reading and responding to followers and fans. My new designated day to get some real interactions in will be Friday — and I’ll call it my Fans & Followers Fridays.

Hopefully, I can take future breaks from Medium, without all my stats plummeting. But even if they do, I can help the figures rise again, from all the renewed energy that comes from being rested.

Are you a writer in need of a break from Medium? Are you a person in need of a break in general?

Whatever your situation, we all can stand to take a break sometimes, even if it means things fall a little behind.

Remember the affects of the “twisties” and avoid being out of sync.
Remember the three types of thoughts that make us jeopardize our mental and physical well being.
Remember the benefit of stepping away.

Dear Reader: Would you like to read more informative, valuable, and entertaining Justiss Goode stories? Just click this Directory link: choose from my OVER 220 titles (by category).