The Content Marketing Specialist With No Content
I work as a Content Marketing Specialist. This is an amazing occupation that I’ve worked really hard to secure. I’ve learned the nuances of this position through hands-on experience. I’ve started to perceive everything as content, interacting with each other, building a strong presence in digital media, and shaping the direction of new media in a very healthy way that everybody can benefit from, thus redefining the culture of advertisement.
This perspective offers an amazing way to view this occupation. However, it doesn’t align with the actual tasks I perform at work. Despite my appreciation for my job, what I do is rather boring and lacks excitement. As a result, it fails to trigger my “flow state” and contribute to my personal growth.
Flow state is when you are so absorbed in what you are doing that you lose all sense of yourself, and time seems to fall away, and you are flowing into the experience itself. (page 51) -Johann Hari, Stolen Focus
On the other hand, the ideas in my mind are very inspiring and exciting. I feel great joy for the things I can do. I tell myself, “If you’re right about how much you can achieve, you will create your own job. What else could you ask for?”
Everything sounds so doable at this level. And I feel like I don’t need any company to show how good I could get at this. Yet, I simply don’t put my full effort into even trying.
I realize it takes great courage to act on it; knowing it is one thing, but doing it is another.
Although my ideas sound fascinating to me, I’m not bold enough to “put myself out there.”
All the ideas that I believe are brilliant are just lying in my brain because I am too scared to find out if they aren’t that brilliant after all.
I deceive myself, telling myself that I’m waiting for the perfect moment, that I need to do more research or more reading. I blame my daytime job for the goals I haven’t achieved. I genuinely believe that what I deserve will be delivered to me one day or another.
This is a persona. A persona we see so common out there, yet we don’t talk much. I call this persona “Drogo” from The Tartar Steppe. This is one of the most fascinating books that I’ve ever read. The way Dino Buzzati puts the words together is so perfect that I can only directly quote him.
He deludes himself, this Drogo, with the dream of a wonderful revenge at some remote date — he believes that he still has an immensity of time at his disposal. So he gives up the petty struggle of the day to day existence. The day will come, he thinks, when all accounts will be paid with interest. But in the meantime the others are overtaking him, they contend keenly with each other, they outstrip Drogo and have no thought for him. They leave him behind. He watches them disappear into the distance, perplexed, a prey to his usual doubts: perhaps he really has made a mistake? Perhaps he is an ordinary mortal for whom only a mediocre fate is reserved?
I am always struck by the power of these lines. I am so close to giving up the petty struggle of day-to-day existence. I often feel carried away, just letting it go by, thinking “the day will come” for me. As I get one year closer to 30, I wait and see others overtaking and outstripping me. And what comes next? Accepting that I made a mistake, and I am just “an ordinary mortal for whom only a mediocre fate is reserved.”
How strong these words are! How awakening!
But what triggers me the most is always the same: I don’t want to work from 8 to 5 in an office environment. It was always that simple.
First, I want to be free and make money from something I enjoy. Then, I want to be out in nature where my feet can touch the soil. I want to be able to appreciate the little things I see outside, rather than sitting at my desk in front of my laptop at home, where nothing ever changes. I want to capture unposed moments. And most importantly, I want my desire to socialize with my surroundings back.
I realized this when I first read this book before resigning from my initial corporate job, and even after many years, my sentiments remain unchanged. Despite changing jobs multiple times in the hope of escaping this feeling, it persistently resurfaces. Apparently, the solution doesn’t lie in changing jobs.
The solution lies in content that I will create for myself. The content business truly excites me and puts me in a “flow state” when I do it for myself, and I can make money in a more freely working environment in the future.
I made a promise to myself that I will reach 1000 followers on a platform in a year. This was 9 months ago. It looks like I won’t be successful at that one, but I learned a lot along the way (while procrastinating). I can use this knowledge for a new goal (while not procrastinating).
There will be two basic steps to achieve this goal:
- Discipline: I am building atomic habits to establish an even more consistent lifestyle that will eventually help me achieve a bigger goal.
- Defining my goal more clearly with numbers and dates and working on meeting the targets as if I am a company.
Wish me luck!
