Yes, people are listening
Gary Bloomer | SHAKING THE TREE #161
Have you ever watched a heron?
These amazing birds will stand perfectly still, gazing down into the water for hours on end. What are they doing? they’re waiting for just the right fish to come into just the right range at just the right moment.
That’s when the strike.
Herons are the epitome of patience.
Which brings us, in a round about way, to a simple idea: success takes time.
When you’re first getting started writing and publishing an online newsletter, it can often feel as if no one’s listening.
You put your heart and soul into creating the perfect post, you put it out there, and then: crickets.
Been there. Done that.
You’ll go for weeks without attracting anywhere near the number of subscribers you think you ought to be getting. While other content creators seems to move forward in leaps and bounds, you feel like you’re stuck in first gear.
Here’s the thing: no one owes you their attention. You might think they do, but they don’t. No one is beholden to you, no one needs to pay you the slightest bit of attention.
No one owes you their email address or their time.
Seriously.
The sooner you accept this and the sooner you understand that it takes time to create visibility, and that it’s only through consistently showing up that anyone will notice you, and it’s only getting noticed that you generate attention, and it’s only once you’ve done created attention that anyone will think enough of your material to care enough to subscribe to your newsletter, or to your video channel, or to your podcast.
Sorry to burst your bubble.
So, yes: people are listening … it’s just that until you’ve got something worth paying attention to, it’s going to take time to get people to notice what you’re doing.
The simple truth is that most things we want to happen take way longer to come to fruition than we imagine it will take.
You need to keep showing up, week after week, and you need to keep looking a year or more into the future.
The more you focus on short term goals, the more frustrated you’ll become when you don’t reach those goals.
Keep going. But keep your eye on the longer term outlook rather than on the shorter term events.
As always, thanks for reading.
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P.S. Next time on Shaking the Tree … The power of laying it all out.