How I Started My Blog and Why

I took to writing diary at the age of 20 and found it to be very valuable practice for a youngster like me during development phase, as it gave me an easy medium to express my thoughts and inner feelings openly. Initially my diary entries were a simple record of my daily activities, then it began capturing the events around me, and gradually I opened up and started sharing my feelings, emotions, excitements, and disappointment in these entries. With time, I developed a special relationship with my diary.

Around the same time, I got interested in the power of mind as I came across the works of great gurus of positive thinking - Dale Carnegie, W W Dyer, Norman Vincent Peale, and Stephen Covey. I got deeply influenced by their teachings that we create our world with the thoughts we choose for ourselves. I took a resolve to develop a positive outlook in life; however, it was easier said than done for a youngster. As I struggled with different ways to incorporate it in my day-to-day life, I found that it helps if I recount my experiences in the diary. So, I started narrating what I went through, the lesson learned from the experience and conclusion drawn. Still, there were good days where things seemed to work well, and there were bad days when nothing worked, and I used to wonder, "Am I on the right path?" During such periods of self-doubt, inspirational literature was very helpful to recharge the batteries, but the only available material was scattered in printed books. For ease of access, I began to compile a library of motivational articles for my own use. Whenever I came across an inspiring quote or idea in an article, I noted it down in the diary. With time, this grew into a handy repository that I could use any time to motivate me. However, I could not share it with anyone else since it was in my diary, which remained very personal and private.

With persistent efforts, I managed to convince myself beyond doubt about the power of positive mindset. I knew now that in most circumstances, the outcome is determined by my own thinking, more than any other external factor. But when I looked around, I came across many friends who were skeptical and not as convinced about its benefits. Many of them knew that being positive is good and tried it out but came across hurdles and gave it up for the lack of reinforcement. I knew I could help in such cases with my experiences, and it did work in a few instances. This gave me a feeling that if I could somehow publish these experiences, it may help spread awareness and about importance of positive attitude to a wider audience; however I was not sure how to go about it.

In late 90s when email became common, it brought a flood of “forwarded messages”, the kind that is passed on to you from a friend who got it from his friend and so on. While most of these messages used be mundane time pass, every now and then an email would show up with a remarkable message of inspiration and positive attitude. This had the effect of reviving my interest in collecting these items, with a difference that now I could use technology to put them on a webpage and make them available to others. Some of my friends who went through my Inspiration Webpage told me later that they found this collection to be a handy source of inspiration.

With the advent of Blogs (an abbreviation of Weblog), we got a new popular medium that made it very easy to publish our ideas and thoughts on any topic. All you needed was access to Internet to get started. A blog definitely looked like a good tool to implement my idea, but I could not see myself writing a blog at that time because I did not consider my writing skills to be good enough to be a blogger.

A few years ago, I came across a turning point in my life when I sat down and wrote a mission statement for myself. A mission statement is a way of discovering what you are about and what are important things for you. It is quite an involved topic in itself and I hope I can write a separate post with details about it someday. While working on it, the toughest question I had to answer was about my legacy that I want to leave behind. i.e. what is the one thing for which I would like to be remembered after I am gone? I had never thought about it in the past. After thinking hard for many days I came to the conclusion that it has got to be positive thinking. Hence, I added the following bullet to my mission statement, “Leave a legacy of positive thinking”. From this moment the choice was quite clear. I took a deep breath, and decided to take the plunge in the world of blogging with an objective to spread awareness about positive attitude and to compile a set of article that can help charge the battery when needed.

So, here is my blog, which has my views, experiences, learning, conclusions, and inspirational stories, a bunch of nuggets I have found on the path of positive thinking. To make it wholesome, I have borrowed extensively from a host of available literature such as inspirational messages received on social media, articles by well-known motivational authors, and inspirational books. I believe this diverse material will help enhance the usefulness of the blog. Though I sometimes write about an specific incident to elaborate a point, in general this blog is not my story, because that is not important.

I really enjoy working on this blog and it lifts my spirits whenever I write a post. I sincerely thank my friends for their encouragement by following my blog and posting their comments. My effort would be worthwhile if this collection makes an interesting reading material, rubs off some of its positive effect on you and leaves you feeling inspired and motivated. Did you find it interesting? Your feedback and comments are always welcome.