Starting Over: Hitting The Reset Button on The Renaissance Life

Created via Midjourney

I recently crossed over 5 years' worth of blogging every day.

~~To be honest,~~ I started blogging daily out of desperation. I wanted to be a writer, but I wasn’t writing. I’d wait for insight or motivation to strike, which (plot twist) it rarely did.

This went on for quite some time without any sign of change. Honestly, I shouldn’t have been surprised. It’s difficult to be a writer if you don’t write. It’s difficult to be anything if you don’t do the thing you want to be.

However, an idea popped into my head—

What would happen if I committed to 30+ minutes of writing and publishing it every day?

5 years later, I’m still writing every day.

One key takeaway I learned along the way is—

Daily habits are a great way to grease the creative wheels and build momentum in your life.

…But I’ve lately been losing steam.

I feel frustrated by this blog and my writing abilities. ~~I think~~ This frustration has been reflected in my writing. I’ve improved, but only marginally. I’ve been pushing it off to the very last minute of the day. Putting in the least amount of effort. Some days, the ideas really shine. Others are hopefully lost to the online currents.

I could give many reasons (excuses) why I’m here. But the main one that comes to mind is I’ve only treated my writing as a cute side project. I have big ambitions of writing books and becoming a respected thought leader and entrepreneur, but those dreams aren't being put into practice (yet).

I also didn’t put a whole of time into the game of online writing. I wasn’t really concerned about how many people were reading, rather I was focused just on the writing itself.

Simultaneously, I took a year off social media, and ever since I’ve had a difficult time jumping back on that train. One year turned into two…three…

But I have a strong desire to re-make the RL into something more—something bigger. I know Renaissance Life can be more than just a blog about whatever random insights I learned that day.

I am at a crossroads, or what Seth Godin calls The Dip. I either need to quit, or change. As Seth puts it, “The opposite of quitting is rededication.”

RL will be a community. A resource for learning real-life skills and multidisciplinary mastery.

And this article and the new website are a rededication to that vision.
What does that look like in the details? I have no idea. But that’s exciting ~~in it’s own way~~ too.

First off, I want to deconstruct great writers and dive deeper into what makes compelling writing.

What makes a great story?
What makes ideas resonate and others don’t?
What’s the psychology behind great writing?

Secondly, I’d also like to deconstruct other useful skills. And I also want to build a go-to knowledge resource focused on life skills.

And most of all, I want to experiment. New formats. Different mediums. 30-day challenges. You name it.

Big Picture - What you should expect:

I’ll be building in public and journaling about my process (this business and others).
My focus is on building a thriving community focused on learning, mastery, creativity, and multidisciplinary skills.
I want to experiment with video (YouTube baby!).
I’m going to invest more time into podcasting.
Create practical articles and how-to’s.
Be more consistent with newsletters, podcasts, and audience building.
Experiment with teaching and public speaking.
Create a brand and products around learning, creativity, and mastery.

Questions you may have:

Q: Who should join the RL?

Are you a creative and/or entrepreneur who wants to be multidisciplinary? Do you have a desire to add more wisdom and meaning to your life? Do you want to succeed and help others succeed? Are you looking for a community of like-minded individuals seeking a better life? Then the RL is a perfect fit for you.

Q: Are you still going to blog daily?

Yes— I’m going to be continuing to write every day, but I won’t be blogging here daily. I want to take my writing to the next level, so the goal is to spend more time on each article and provide the most value possible. I also want to spend more time writing on book ideas that I have. That being said, I am going to set deadlines so that

I will, however, be writing every day at Daily Renaissance and Daily Creative.

Daily Renaissance will be an experiment where I create a daily article focused on insights and wisdom from people from the Renaissance era (and from people who have a multi-disciplinary ethos). The goal is to create a new article each weekday for free and two additional articles and videos for a premium subscription. Daily Creative is a similar idea but focused on artists.

Q: Where are your previous blogs?

I'm switching over to Ghost.org from WordPress to experiment with memberships (free and premium) and combing through my blogs from the past 5 years to edit, refine and reorganize them. Eventually, they'll all be back, so subscribe to the free version to stay up to date on new (and old) articles.

Q: Are you still podcasting?

Yep. I've been dealing with jaw pain for the last couple of years (more on that later), so I put things on hold for a while. But I miss having conversations with smart people, so podcasting is going to be a big priority going forward (despite the personal discomfort it may cause). If you have guests you'd like to see interviewed, reach out at josh [at] renaissancelife.com.

TL;DR

I’m hitting the reset button on Renaissance Life.
I’m building a new site live (so bear with me).
Previous daily blogs will be available in the coming months as I edit and refine them.
The Vision for the RL is to create a thriving community. and resource for learning real-life skills and multidisciplinary mastery.
You can subscribe to new RL articles for free.
I’m adding a premium tier, but more on that later.
My newsletters—Considerations, Practices, and Bookaholics—will continue (and my aim is to be more consistent with them).
Articles on the RL will shift towards more long-form and practical knowledge, so I won’t be daily blogging here anymore (although I’ll still be writing every day).
I’ll be setting up an updated feed where I can jot down updates and thoughts on my process.
Daily Renaissance (coming soon) will be an experiment where I create a daily article focused on insights and wisdom from people from the Renaissance era (and from people who have a multi-disciplinary ethos). The goal is to create a new article each weekday for free and two additional articles and videos for a premium subscription.
Daily Creative (coming soon) is a similar idea but focused on artists.
I’m doubling down on podcasting, so be sure to subscribe to the Renaissance Life podcast.
I’ve got dreams of other podcasts, but it depends on how much time I have to give.
I want to experiment with YouTube (so hold me accountable for that).
I'm also going to experiment more with social media and other platforms, such as Twitter (@RL__xyz), Instagram (@Renaissance.Life), and TikTok.

Stay curious, act boldly, go after your dreams,

— Josh Waggoner