“Awesome doesn’t let the crowd determine the size of the performance. Awesome gets up for two people or 200. Awesome writes great books even if no one is going to read them. Awesome sweeps the parts of the store floors that no foot will ever touch.”
-Jon Acuff, Start
I just finished reading Jon Acuff's book Start and although I highlighted about a thousand lines, this was one part of the book that really hit me. Acuff proposes ideas on how we can start to live an awesome life, however, not by the standards that we may think define awesome. It's easy to define work, self-worth, and success by the number of people who read our blogs, watch our videos, or like our pictures on Instagram. We tend to think that our work isn't impactful or worth anything if only our friends and close family are reading it, watching it, or liking it. So we let this doubt and fear sink into our minds and hearts and therefore we stop creating. We stop our journey to an awesome life.
I know that I am definitely guilty of this. You can even tell by the amount of time I've allowed to pass between each blog post on my site. My first few posts got hundreds of views, and then after that when the numbers started to go down I allowed those thoughts of "no one cares" to take over and bring my writing and creating to a halt. Which is kind of ludicrous because I absolutely love taking the time to write out these thoughts and share them. It seems pretty crazy that I would stop doing something that I love because of the fear that people might not care.
When I read Acuff's words "awesome gets up for two or 200 people" or "awesome writes great books even if no one is going to read them" - it really helped me to take inventory of my life and how my own inaction was causing me to miss out on living an awesome life. So here I go, writing and sharing even if only 2 people read blog - because "awesome doesn't let the crowd determine the size of the performance".
What areas in your life or creative endeavors are you holding back from due to being afraid that the crowd won't be there? What steps can you take today to start exploring those areas in pursuit of an awesome life?
Sending you joy,
Jordan
Amazing as always
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