Why You Need To Have a Life Outside of Medium

Live a little more because it can improve your writing

I’ve been writing on Medium for nearly a year, and it’s become one of the most fulfilling ways of expressing myself. My go-to form of creating used to be YouTube, but now it’s 80% Medium and 20% YouTube.

As we all know from writing stories and putting out content, creativity requires a lot of time and dedication. Your projects thrive the most when you’re able to get into a constant flow state where ideas transfer from your mind onto paper.

Allotting your time to telling inspirational stories and writing guides that help other people can seem like your life’s work. Having that grind mentality and entrepreneurial spirit can consume your life if you forget to live a little.

Let’s assume you haven’t quit your day job to write stories on Medium. Don’t look at this as a bad thing. Look at this as an opportunity for you to pursue other parts of life. The life outside of Medium will be what helps you tell meaningful stories — stories that come from first-hand experience.

You Need Inspiration

At some point, the inspiration to simply write and stay inside will slowly fade. But if you develop a healthy relationship with Medium and produce stories at a manageable scale, you’ll last a lot longer than most writers who quit within their first year.

Going out and exploring your hobbies and meeting with people who make you feel good inside and out is essential. Have you noticed how some of the best stories written are the ones that come from experience and are oftentimes relatable?

Your life outside of Medium will provide you with insights that no one else can take away from you. If all your inspiration comes from the stories you read and nothing else follows, then you’re going to run out of things to say.

When I’ve felt like I couldn’t write, it’s because I stayed inside and didn’t socialize with the world outside of my comfort zone. Now, I seek discomfort. The uncomfortable parts of life are going to be what make you an appealing individual. We all have great stories within us to tell. But once we tell those stories to their end, we’ll need something else to talk about, and living life will help out with that tremendously. Living more gives you more to write about.

You May Base Your Self-Worth on Stats

No one and I mean no one should base their self-worth or opinion of themselves based on the success of their Medium following. Sure, the money is great when you get paid for something you work hard on, but it isn’t everything.

Stats are just a measurement of how much of an impact the stories you tell are making online. People have so many forms of content and media to consume content. Just because your blog may not bring in a lot of money does not mean you won’t one day be successful.

Trusting the process is essential to long-term growth. It will take years for the majority of us writers who are looking to strike a chord with the reading community on the internet. My new focus with writing has been to get curated and allow the Medium algorithm to do its work on marketing for me.

I spend less time marketing and instead more time learning new skills and looking for new streams of income. If you want to grow in other sectors of life, you’ll need to be open to exploration and take more risks. Life is a great big playground for us to play on, and that’s why it’s crucial to go out and get your hands dirty.

You Need to Be in Tune With Yourself

I talk a lot about mental health in my blog posts, and being in tune with yourself is going to make or break you as a creator. No one can tell you how to feel or what to do with your life. That is all up to you.

If you feel like things are getting stale, it is essential for you to take a moment to self-reflect and figure out what you really want out of life. After all, you only get one. One of my primary goals is to become a top-writer on Medium, but that’s just one on my wall of goals.

In order to live a quality life of self-worth and positivity, you have to put yourself first above everything else. If you feel like going out to live life more will distract you from a hot streak of writing you’re doing, then go for it. Some of the most successful people lock themselves in a room and come out of it a prodigy who builds something incredible.

Recognize what makes you happiest and what matters to you. If that is your physical fitness, mental health, and connections with friends and family, that’s phenomenal! Be sure to show love to all of these other significant parts of life. Writing is meaningful, but it isn’t everything. You should enjoy as much life as you possibly can. It’ll pay for itself the next time you sit down to write.

Final Thoughts

A lot of writers in the Facebook groups I’m part of are looking for ways to boost their earnings without looking at where they get their inspiration from.

The results you seek comes from living life. It comes from not letting your statistics define you. Your success will come from how in-tune you are with yourself.

If being a top writer was easily achievable, then everyone would be doing it. As I stated before, some of the best stories came from people who have had noteworthy experiences. The only difference between people who have noteworthy experiences and writers is that the writers know how to tell the story in a way that can impact others and be monetized.

That’s why Medium is such a fantastic platform. You get recognized for your hard work and all the inspirational stories you tell the world. Do yourself a favor and live a little. You won’t regret it.

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Jordan Mendiola is a top investment writer on Medium, and a soldier in the United States Army. He recently finished his tour overseas and is taking on his new roles working with social media, marketing, and video production on YouTube. He’s on several social media channels and you can find him on Twitter @JordanMendiola3 and Instagram @Jordan.The.Mendiola.