I just came across your publication today and this is *exactly* what I needed to hear as I'm in the middle of a couple weeks of a nasty plateau after a pretty long period of steady growth. Thank you!!
Hi Karen - I have been on SS since March and am slowly working it out. I write for a niche ( sadly a niche I have first hand experience with) I will watch with awe as you rocket towards your first $20k - congratulations
Hey Karen, have you considered writing about sponsored newsletters - how to find sponsorship, what kind of readership one needs to interest sponsors, or even how to research finding sponsors? Or maybe you've written about this at some point and I missed it?
Hi Carolyn, I haven't written about sponsorship. If you are interested in getting sponsorship you could take a look at https://www.sponsorthisnewsletter.com/
I hit a plateau nearly two months long, and was despairing. (Didn't know it was normal, so this article helps). I talked to a friend who's big into sales and he looked at my paid posts and said I was being too reticent about just straight up asking people to pay for a subscription. I have all kinds of perks, and extra stuff, but I was doing two things wrong: I wasn't posting a regular paywalled post, but only occasionally, and I wasn't asking. So I recommitted to dividing my work 50/50 paid and free, and offering extra material for paying subscribers. Then I did a dedicated post explaining very frankly that while I was doing the work full time, I was nowhere near receiving a full time salary because paid subscribers weren't coming. Then I just asked them. And that was the end of the plateau.
George Leonard, in his 1992 book 'Mastery', covers the experience of the plateau on the path of mastery. He encourages us to learn to love the plateau.
Here are my notes from what he says about the plateau:
1. Early in life, we are taught that we should put effort into something in order to get something else - study hard so we get good grades, get good grades so we can go to college, and graduate from college so we get a good job.
2. While goals are important, the real rewards in life can be found in the process, of how it feels to be alive, but we are never taught how to enjoy the plateau so many of us indulge in self-destructive behaviours to escape it.
3. On the plateau, we can learn to enjoy regular hard practice for its own sake, with no particular goal in mind, without the worm of ambition eating away at us.
4. We need to stay on the plateau as long as is necessary to avoid the perils of getting ahead of ourselves.
5. Every human activity which involves significant learning - physical, mental, emotional, or spiritual - is paradoxically exceptionally demanding, unforgiving, yet rewarding.
6. Despite the War on Mastery, there are millions of people who are dedicated to the process as well as to the product - people who love the plateau - fed by the ordinary routine itself.
7. Goals and contingencies are important, but they exist in our minds in the past and the future. Practice, on the path of mastery, exists only in the present.
8. To love the plateau is to love the eternal now.
I didn't - but I'm posting a whole summary of the book tomorrow - hence my current attunement to anyone talking about plateaus in the context of pursuing a goal.
Not giving up on the plateau has become a mantra of mine after reading the book, it's interesting how we get stuck in the short term and can't see how progress unravels when we zoom out.
I just came across your publication today and this is *exactly* what I needed to hear as I'm in the middle of a couple weeks of a nasty plateau after a pretty long period of steady growth. Thank you!!
Hi Karen - I have been on SS since March and am slowly working it out. I write for a niche ( sadly a niche I have first hand experience with) I will watch with awe as you rocket towards your first $20k - congratulations
Hey Karen, have you considered writing about sponsored newsletters - how to find sponsorship, what kind of readership one needs to interest sponsors, or even how to research finding sponsors? Or maybe you've written about this at some point and I missed it?
Hi Carolyn, I haven't written about sponsorship. If you are interested in getting sponsorship you could take a look at https://www.sponsorthisnewsletter.com/
Congrats on the $12k, Karen. That's very encouraging.
"What are your tips?"
I hit a plateau nearly two months long, and was despairing. (Didn't know it was normal, so this article helps). I talked to a friend who's big into sales and he looked at my paid posts and said I was being too reticent about just straight up asking people to pay for a subscription. I have all kinds of perks, and extra stuff, but I was doing two things wrong: I wasn't posting a regular paywalled post, but only occasionally, and I wasn't asking. So I recommitted to dividing my work 50/50 paid and free, and offering extra material for paying subscribers. Then I did a dedicated post explaining very frankly that while I was doing the work full time, I was nowhere near receiving a full time salary because paid subscribers weren't coming. Then I just asked them. And that was the end of the plateau.
Be brave and ask.
George Leonard, in his 1992 book 'Mastery', covers the experience of the plateau on the path of mastery. He encourages us to learn to love the plateau.
Here are my notes from what he says about the plateau:
1. Early in life, we are taught that we should put effort into something in order to get something else - study hard so we get good grades, get good grades so we can go to college, and graduate from college so we get a good job.
2. While goals are important, the real rewards in life can be found in the process, of how it feels to be alive, but we are never taught how to enjoy the plateau so many of us indulge in self-destructive behaviours to escape it.
3. On the plateau, we can learn to enjoy regular hard practice for its own sake, with no particular goal in mind, without the worm of ambition eating away at us.
4. We need to stay on the plateau as long as is necessary to avoid the perils of getting ahead of ourselves.
5. Every human activity which involves significant learning - physical, mental, emotional, or spiritual - is paradoxically exceptionally demanding, unforgiving, yet rewarding.
6. Despite the War on Mastery, there are millions of people who are dedicated to the process as well as to the product - people who love the plateau - fed by the ordinary routine itself.
7. Goals and contingencies are important, but they exist in our minds in the past and the future. Practice, on the path of mastery, exists only in the present.
8. To love the plateau is to love the eternal now.
This is a wonderful addition to the conversation John, and would make a great Note on Substack too, if you use Notes. Did you post it there?
I didn't - but I'm posting a whole summary of the book tomorrow - hence my current attunement to anyone talking about plateaus in the context of pursuing a goal.
Not giving up on the plateau has become a mantra of mine after reading the book, it's interesting how we get stuck in the short term and can't see how progress unravels when we zoom out.