My 1st video post! - Feeling grateful & amazed - Talking about the 100-day creator challenge

PREAMBLE:

-This is the first installment of my ‘100 Days of Wonder’ subsection of this main publication, Meaning-Making.

• If you want to receive these 100DoW posts every weekday, you must opt-in (if you haven’t done so already). (Check the box for 100 Days of Wonder here in your settings if you want to opt-in.)

• If you’re fine with my weekly-ish emails, then you don’t need to do anything (I’ll send some of these 100DoW posts to the main publication as well).

-You can watch or listen to the video or read below; both contain the same content.

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Hey friends, I wanted to make a quick video as my first entry to the challenge that I'm doing.

I created a challenge, 100 Days of Wonder, for myself, where I'll post something that sparks wonder in me or what I'm wondering about. For 100 days!

But I'm not the only one doing a challenge. (The Wonder thing is specific to me, though.) I put a challenge out there of doing 100 weekdays of creative stuff.

And, like ~30 people joined so far as well. 🤯 So that's what I wanted to talk about a little bit today!

Grateful, amazed, excited

I'm super amazed, excited, and grateful that people are now doing something that I did three years ago on my own. At the time—three years ago—I already had the idea to ask people to join, but I was not self-confident enough, and my network was really small.

So I'm super excited that people are joining now, and I want to talk a little bit about this challenge and why I'm doing it.

The reason I started it was mostly as accountability to myself because I can really go through ups and downs in my creative flow. When I'm not creating, I get like really anhedonic. (I learned that word just a few days ago. It means something like you get lackluster or almost even depressed, not finding joy in things that normally would spark joy.)

So when I am creating—when I write something or make a video, or have some different way of creating something—I just feel really alive. I know there are more people like me out there, so I want to help folks get a taste of what it's like to make something consistently. Plus, I also want to help you get over this hump of fear, perfectionism, or overthinking everything.

The value of doing this challenge

There are four reasons that I think are important or valuable in doing a challenge like this (doing something creative every day).

Actually, three years ago, I did this every day, but now I'm saying only weekdays because my wife wasn't that happy with me doing it during the weekends as well.

1. So the first reason is that you get really introspective when you're writing something every day. It’s like you get a clear heartbeat of your subconscious. You feel what's coming up in your mind every day when you start writing about it, almost like journaling in a sense.

2. The second thing is that you get self-confidence or discipline in making something. You prove to yourself that you can be consistent with something.

3. The third reason is that you actually get a body of work. (The way my old blog was seeded was actually with the challenge I did on my own three years ago. Even now, half of what is on my main website came from me doing that challenge!)

4. And the last (and most important one IMO) is that you choose to matter. You're choosing to see life as meaningful because you're expressing your world—your life—into words, songs, poetry, painting, or whatever you're making. You make the decision that life matters to you. And that you matter. (I feel that's the most value I got from it three years ago.)

Side note a little further into point #4:

Three years ago, I was in a really dark place. Sometimes people call it something like the dark night of the soul. And doing this challenge got me to climb out of that. (What I also did at the time was a workout every day, which was pretty insane… but I'm gonna do that again as well, though only on weekdays. 😅)

Closing thoughts

There are a bunch of people doing this challenge, and they mostly come from my Twitter sphere/community/vicinity (cause that's where I hang out a lot). But also many who write here, on Substack.

I think more than half of the people who joined the challenge write here on Substack even. Or started writing here because I recommended it to them. (I should ask Substack to pay me, haha, No just kidding, I really like the platform a lot.)

cozy writing friends

But to come back to the theme of this subsection of my newsletter, 100 Days of Wonder, I’ll just say that I'm very grateful for the people who are joining in the challenge. It feels like a group of cozy friends writing together, which is pretty awesome.

That's it for today; thank you!

Sincerely,

Jibran

PS.

Btw, if you're seeing this, the challenge has already started, but it's no problem if you want to join a little late. I'm not that strict on rules or anything. Just send me a message, DM, or email. Or fill in the survey below with your name and publication URL.