As the solo founder and Editorial Director here at Old Soul Wednesdays, I depend a lot on the wonderful friends, acquaintances, and friends of friends who have been a part of this adventure thus far. Most of the content here would not exist without the amazing humans who have let me interview them, written guest articles for me, and collaborated on brainstorms.
When I started Old Soul Wednesdays back in April of 2018 and built the base of content over the summer, I wasn't working full time and had time on my hands. That fall I started working full time again, and I suddenly found myself feeling like I didn't have time to keep this going.
For a couple of weeks, I found myself categorizing Old Soul Wednesdays in my brain as the kind of work that I have to do, the kind of work that sometimes falls victim to procrastination. But I had forgotten why I started doing this in the first place: this is nourishing work. This is creative work that I do for its own sake.
I had started taking it too seriously. I had strategies and plans for generating website traffic and was stressing about deadlines for contributing writers. I started this as a creative outlet, and I needed to get back to that purpose.
I was reminded of all of this as I spent a week procrastinating on reading my friend Smita's writing submission to the Technology and Human Connection collaboration. Last night I finally brought myself to read her words and publish them, and doing so reminded me that creating is vitally important.
Creating and collaborating and connecting with the people who have been and will in the future be a part of this has been an amazing experience. I've reconnected with friends from middle school, met new people, and gotten to know people in my life more deeply. It's been an unexpected and incredible byproduct of this whole endeavor- one that has quickly become a focal point as I move forward with Old Soul Wednesdays.
And so, this is all to say, this is a side project. It always was, but I had lost sight of that and in doing so was starting to sacrifice some of its magic.
I'm going to let it be a side project. I'm going to enjoy this work and build these connections and continue to make sure that every person who works on this with me in any way has a positive, nourishing, creative experience. If you're still reading, thank you for being here. I'm going to make sure that this is a sustainable addition to my life and not another overzealous business plan.
I'll still keep my ideas organized and write out a content calendar, but I'm not going to worry about how often I'm posting on Instagram or how many pieces of content I'm producing each month. I'm going to focus less on whether or not there's a Coffee Shop Conversations piece published each month and focus more on letting ideas flow and develop organically around each monthly theme. If a piece of writing for September's theme doesn't come in until October, I'll still post it.
I am recommitting to creating content, exploring the themes I originally laid out, and building The Publication and The Reading List. I am also recommitting to enjoying this work and not turning it into a stressful item on my to do list- or at least I'm going to try. It's a practice, everything is a practice.
Here's to the practice of prioritizing the magic!