How Writing Regularly Can Change Your Life

I've built my whole career around writing and you can too.

Writing online can be the best way to kickstart or accelerate your career. In 2013, I got an invitation to join Exotel, my first startup job, because I was writing about digital marketing at DigitalDeepak.com.

My blog was not getting 1000s of visitors at that time. However, it was still discovered by the right people, and my prospects for a job went up. Since then I've worked at Instamojo, Practo, and Razorpay to name a few.

Writing online has the following benefits:

Organize Thoughts: You can organize your thoughts and present them in a format that is structured. It helps you revise and have a deeper understanding of what you already know. If you cannot simply explain something, it means you have not understood the concept deeply enough.

Discovery: People discover blog posts through social media, professional networks, and even from your resume. The people who find can be clients, employers, students, or customers. Opportunities fall in your lap when you least expect them.

Discipline: Managing a blog also shows that you have the discipline to write. Which most people do not. Most of the people on the web just post random pictures on Instagram and one-liners on Twitter or LinkedIn. Anyone can do reactions and "mental farts". But it takes discipline to write.

Networking: You can grow your professional network with writing. People will know you at events. Even if they have not read your complete article, they would have at least come across your posts and that would help them recognize you. Writers command instant respect. Imagine the fun of people reaching out to you in networking events and you not having to introduce yourself to establish your creds.

Note-taking: Writing online is the best form of note-taking. When you read, learn, attend events, and hear from people, the points that you want to remember are best consolidated as a blog post. When you write online for an audience, you will put some effort into making it organized. If you take notes on a random notepad, it will be unorganized and 9/10 times you will lose them within a matter of a few weeks. And we never try to find them either.

Writing online also becomes a platform for launching your side hustle. DigitalDeepak.com helped me jump from one job to another without friction because companies are always looking for talent.

However, because I had the blog up and running, I was able to launch my first online course in 2016. The blog helped me build an email list and the email list helped me launch my first course to my audience. The blog has helped me launch two companies. PixelTrack - my Digital Marketing Agency and LearnToday - my ed-tech company.

Your content gets read by anyone, anywhere in the world, even when you are sleeping. Writing online is the best way to "digitize yourself". What you want to say, what you think, and what you believe can be spread to an infinite number of people at lightning speed through your content. For example, right now I am writing this article at 9 am on May 17th, but you might be reading it at a different time, place, and context. I might be on to something else, personally or professionally.

A blog can also lead to building self-confidence. I was not comfortable putting myself online, on video, or starting a YouTube channel. The comfort came after seeing that I have a following for my writing, and the audience who reads my content likes my content and also looks up to me.

So I started making videos and spread them to my audience. I started getting more comments, which encouraged me to do more of it. It has led to my YouTube channel growing to more than 1L subscribers. The best-known will always beat the best.

To accelerate your career, you need to up-skill yourself, but you also need to market yourself better. If people do not know you, no matter how much skill you have, you will not get hired.

It's hard for recruiters to know your skill level unless you showcase it. Finding someone's skill level through multiple rounds of interviews and tests is a long and arduous process. You don't want to be competing there. Instead, do inbound marketing for yourself, and your personal brand online, and believe me, the opportunities are waiting to come to you.