Things I want my kids to know

I am that one friend who sends people long rambly voicenotes rather than written messages.

If you have ever had cause to DM me on one of the various platforms, then if I am sending you a longer message it is guaranteed to be a voicenote. In doing that, there is a phrase that comes out of my mouth quite a lot when I try to explain why:

“I express myself better verbally than I do in writing.”

However, I have been doing this newsletter since April 2024, and in recent months I have started to wonder whether maybe I might be quite good at this writing thing after all.

And that has come from you lot.

I have always enjoyed the writing, but recently it has felt easier, and I think that this is because the lovely bits of feedback I get are actually sinking in and I am starting to believe them.

When you don’t feel confident about something, or you just aren’t sure about it yet, then when someone gives you a lovely compliment, it can be quite hard to take it on board. Maybe a part of you pipes up and says “Ah, they are just being nice” and bats it away, or maybe even (which is what has happened to me a few times) someone says something so positive that it is hard to believe it might be about something that you have done. It is hard to take it on board because it feels alien, in a way.

Typically, when I saw the “read rates” of my emails and saw that there were a lot of people actually taking the time to open my specific email, rather than sending it straight on to the bin) it was hard for me to wrap my head around. Then when I had a few people tell me that they actively look forward to it, that they set it aside to read each week, or that they dip in and out but they wanted to tell me about how this one particular one had been useful for them, that was almost shocking for me to hear, to begin with.

“My little email thing?”

When I started doing this I wasn’t sure how it was going to go, but I wanted to give it a try. Now, over 18 months on, I feel actively good and confident about what I am doing. I do now believe that I am good at expressing myself in writing.

(I am still going to send voicenotes though I am afraid – I might be able to express myself in writing but not when I am trying to do so with only my thumbs).

I think the term “fake it ‘til you make it” sometimes has negative connotations, because it suggests some level of fraud or something, but the principle that if you don’t feel confident, then one of the best ways of tackling that is to go and give it a go, despite the nerves, and despite the fact that you might not be very good to start with, and give yourself time to practice and get feedback. Then, one day, you might improve and you might end up actually feeling more confident.

But it’s not going to happen if you can’t give it a shot.

My own change in confidence hasn’t come from an internal change, like speaking to myself differently. It has come from doing it despite the doubt, and getting some real, concrete feedback that says “This is good, you know.”

I have also worked on actually letting the positive feedback in, but you can’t do that unless you have the feedback to work with.

So, that brings me to my thank-you. Thank you for reading. Thank you for the comments and the notes. Thank you for the questions and support. The very fact that so many of you read this thing has had an impact upon the way that I see myself, and that is a big deal.

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Thanks for reading. Until next week,

Ted

P.S. I am signing off for a couple of weeks now for Christmas, but the newsletter will still be coming. I wish you all the best for the end of the year, whatever that holds in store for you. I'll see you again in January.