Anytime I’ve ever said the phrase “for what it’s worth” to someone, what followed next was of value to them (known because they so much as said so). Still, I’m realizing that worth and the value of my voice aren’t something I’m confident about yet.

If you’ve been around lately you’ve already heard I’ve made a commitment to do one small thing each day to remain connected to my “writer” self. If you haven’t, you just heard it for the first time and you’re also all caught up.  I started out with a list of tasks I wanted to accomplish and broke them down with my Reminders app to plot out the following two weeks. I lasted about 10 days before I realized:

A. Some of my “small things” were really quite large and too large for the days I’d scheduled them on

B. I may be better off looking back at the end of a day with the question “what have you done today to connect to your writer self?” Rather than prescribing the action ahead of time. Even if the answer is only that I reflected on the question I don’t have th agony of defeat that comes from an unchecked box on my to-do list.

Why am I telling you this?

Because after posting the Big Brave Beautiful post and my intention to seek contributors my next tasks were, naturally, to start seeking contributors. And that is where I was stopped dead in my tracks. First, I can attribute the lack of progress to the misstep of scheduling the “start writing to folks to invite them to contribute” on the weekend that my son was home in full summer vacation mode before heading off to spend two weeks with his dad. Not a lot of quiet, calm, quality working time to be found in that scenario.

Second, I found myself lost.  And when I found myself I realized I was consumed by self worth issues.  Some of the questions I had for myself were:

1. What would an audience get by coming here?
2. ‘How do readers benefit from this blog?
3. What is the value/worth of my voice?

All of these are important questions. Knowing the value of what you’re offering is essential in any venture… but instead of engaging in a marketing exercise with myself instead my answers sounded something like:

1. nothing because I don’t have a book to sell them
2. I don’t know–not at all
3. diddly squat.

‘Twas not exactly confidence inspiring.

Exploring this further I realized I was needing to excavate yet another “should.”

he writes, therefore he’s a writer… the same applies to me

“Writers should have books,” said my small mind.

This assumption was silently directing me behind the scenes. Sure, I have some books in me and they’ll come out eventually but writing this blog has been my most treasured writing experience so far. So much more than any contest entry, school assignment, or attempt at book authoring.

In revealing the hidden belief as the self worth(less) thinking trigger I was able to refocus.  I didn’t necessarily feel confident but I felt reassured that the path I am on now is right and is enough. I can continue seeking an audience for what I’m doing now. I don’t need to have more to offer my readers right at the moment, what I’m doing here is plenty.

But the Pandora’s box of self worth has been opened and there are at least three more stories to be told on the topic… Stay tuned for Parts two, three, and four.