Why Am I Here? 🤷♂️
My first post was on my site was back on May 20, 2022. As I’m writing this, it has been 13 months to the DAY of that post (which you can read here).
In the past year, I’ve learned a lot & experienced a lot.
My views on the world & life have evolved.
Confession Time…
When I first started, I had this vision that I’d start a blog, website, or something along those lines and then spend all my time trying to monetize.
New income stream?! VERY motivating! But after awhile something changed.
I felt like I was forcing my self to write for the wrong reasons. Would money be nice? Sure, but that was never really the driving force.
Learn, Share, Help. Those were my real goals. Time to get back to that
Some Things Never Change!
I’m actually glad I went back and re-read my first blog post. Amazingly, I still feel EXACTLY the same way as I did then:
"Simplify The Learnings & Share The Experiences
My goal, as a part of all this it to take what I learn and cut through all the noise, all the bullshit, and be able to deliver you guys the good stuff. There’s enough things you can go waste your time on, I do NOT want this to be a waste of time. Admittedly, I do like to tell a good story, so I may occasionally be long winded, but it will be for entertainment & enjoyment, not just to hit a word count with nonsense.”
This piece is also still true!
“What You Can Expect To Get?
There will be some areas that I expect to be pretty constant:
Book Reviews
Self Development Exercises
Finance & Investing Lessons Learned
Thoughts/Reflections on Success in society & how it evolves over time
Inspiration & motivation to push through tough times”
This was never meant to be a click bait site. It was meant to be a place where I could share my own personal journey that will hopefully resonate with some of you. In a perfect world I would LOVE to be able to build a community of like minded people so we can all build, grow, and encourage each other together.
Success - Then & Now
One HUUUGGEEE thing when I first started was how to figure out what it means to be “successful”. In my second ever blog post, I talk about “What is Success?”
I still firmly believe a lot of what is in here
Success = Being Fucking Happy
I dont believe success is one thing, I believe it is a sum of our own pillars/priorities
As I continue to consume & learn, there is one shift that has happened over the past year. More likely in the past few weeks. I want to try a slightly definitions. Instead of trying to find success, I want to work toward finding fulfillment.
Success, to me, is an idea. Something that is heavily popularized by what the world thinks
Fulfillment is more of a state of being. Something that is very personal & specialized to an individual.
At the core, these 2 might really be the same thing. For me, though, the slight shift changes my views on how I want to set goals and the things I want to achieve. It’s a focus on a much more holistic approach.
Reflection
This has actually been a really awesome exercise for me.
“WOW AJ, YOU MEAN YOU DID A FUCKING RETROSPECTIVE AND FEEL COOL?!?”
Yes, that’s exactly what I’m saying. Sometimes, I can be a little dense and have to learn things by doing, by failing, or by falling in to it by accident (like this)
To help me better track growth and stay focused on my journey, I just added a recurring calendar reminder to re-read these posts every May 20th.
The goal is to review growth (or lack there of) and to help keep grounded to my original ideals. Things will change over time, but at the core, I’m still working toward the same goals
Next Steps
On top of looking at where I was a year ago, I also looked at where I was a few months ago. PLUS trying to figure out where the hell I’ve been.
Frankly I’ve missed about 7 or so weeks of content. That hurt my soul. I could backdate like nothing happened. OR I could use this as a reminder to reflect, stay focused, and #KeepFuckinGoing
Main things that I am working on based off this:
Content Calendar - I built one, kind of. Jotted down a list of about 60-70 topics that I’ve wanted to write about. I’ll use this to always make sure I have things to write about and don’t miss another week
Tracking progress - I’ve found a few different methods/frameworks over the past few months. Some are ok, but I want something that drives action & change, not just tracks progress. have some ideas that I want to experiment with. I’ll keep track. If something good comes up I’ll let you know!
More Content / More Sharing - Trying to find the right platforms for content.
Blog - medium to long form conent
Twitter - I really love twitter. Easy to share quick thoughts & lessons
Facebook - Obviously I’ll keep #AJsBookClub Going!
Linkedin, YouTube, other? - Not committing to anything else yet, but I want to share more and find the best places to do that
Keep In Touch!
Until Next Time!
A.J. Zampella