Since moving to a new domain and trying to put all the things I create together online, I’ve been feeling a bit of pressure. Granted, completely self-imposed, but a very real tinge of anxiety to be better at what I publish there. A noble pursuit but one that’s made me feel down.

Before I discuss these worries, let’s take a step back a bit and be honest. I’m playing pretend. In a world of writers, photographers and all around publishing masters — I’m not even small fry and the framing of this is important when discussing these types of worries. Simply because I shouldn’t have them at all.

Publishing my thoughts to the internet was easy when I didn’t care. My domain wasn’t my name, and I wasn’t even pretending to build some kind of online presence. I’ve been putting things online for a little short of a decade and never worried once about what it looked like. Something worth remembering because my blog in no small part is one of the reasons I have my day job. Yet now, I have some kind of blogging yips because nothing is good enough to be published.

There are no shortage of ideas on what to write about, but they rarely make it past a draft. To cure it, I’ve had to strip everything back and make my writing more personal. Go back to my blogging roots and make my website about me again. I may be boring, I may make ridiculous typos, but it’s the only way for me to seemingly publish more often.

I am positive others feel this way because they compare themselves to others. It’s the way of the modern world online, comparing your insides to everyone else’s outsides and we all know it. Sometimes you have to get out your own way and just do it.