Cringing At Yourself Is Good

Cringing at yourself is good. This is not a new or exciting idea, but it’s one that many people (including myself) have not internalized. This blog currently has 4 posts on it, 3 of which make me cringe.

I haven’t posted here for months because I don’t want to draw attention from other people. I’m scared that they’ll look at the posts, think, ‘this guy is shit at writing’, and disregard anything I have to say in the future. That mentality can be a severe block for any writing you want to put out in the world.

It’s even more irrational that I do this because I’ve been posting roughly one YouTube video a week for the past year, and I haven’t been scared to put those out. The most likely reason behind this is that, to me, the benefits of posting on YouTube outweigh any negativity I may experience. Those benefits are money and clout. Shallow, but they’re there!

When I think about actually putting up one of my little drafts on this blog, I get excited, and then I’m hit with a wave of cringe from the poor quality of posts I’ve already put up, and stop myself from posting at all. This is something I need to work on, and I’m planning to over the course of the next few months. I want to post on a regular basis, the specifics of which are to be determined and to do that, I’ll need to internalize that cringing at myself is usually good.

A thought that may have occurred to you is, “Sid, why don’t you just delete the posts you’re not proud of?” Well, dear reader, if I did that, I’m eliminating public signs of my progress. If I go back and cringe at my last post because it was rambling or poorly constructed, then that’s a good thing. I’m recognizing flaws I’ve made and (hopefully) putting in the work to fix those flaws. I can almost guarantee that I will cringe at this post a week after it goes up, but I hope to find fewer flaws than in my last post.

I could do this in private, but it wouldn’t have the same effect. It’s nice to know that other people might read this. That encourages me to put my best foot (fingers?) forward so that people who read these little posts might have something to gain.

This blog, and the other content I put out on the internet, is as much for me to learn and grow from as it is for other people to consume. I’m a fledgling writer, an incredibly novice videographer, and a somewhat decent programmer. Over time I will improve and cringe at my past work, and I look forward to that. Until then, the only thing I can do is transfer my thoughts from my brain to the page, the editing timeline, or a text editor.