Post 101st - What I’ve Learned from My First 100th Articles

Last Updated on May 1, 2022 by Chin Yi Xuan

Last week, I published my 100th article on No Money Lah.

It took me a little bit more than 2 years to reach this milestone, and I am blissfully proud of this achievement. On that note, if you have read even just one of my articles, thank you so much!

Here’s what I’ve learned from my first 100th articles over the span of 2 years:

#1 The first 100 is not gonna be easy.

Charlie Munger, the business partner to Warren Buffett once said that accumulating “your first $100,000 is a b*tch, but you gotta do it.”

I think this sentiment is highly relatable to any other milestone in our career and life:

• My first 100th article.
• Your first 100th sales.
• Ronaldo’s first 100th goal (it was back in March 2012).
• Anyone’s first 100th public speaking attempt.

These are not going to be easy milestones to reach. You are most likely going to make rookie mistakes, your passion will be tested, and you’ll struggle to reach consistency.

However, in your journey to the 100th, you are most likely going to establish your own style. You’ll get a feel of what works, and what doesn’t.

Even more important, you’ll build a routine, ritual, or system as you reach 100th. Speaking of which…

#2 Having a routine & system is CRUCIAL

I’ve never seen or read of people that reached meaningful milestones in career or life, which they achieved without a proper routine or system.

In the journey to my 100th article, I’ve gone from ‘I’ll write anything that comes to my mind’ to planning ahead of each article in advance. It goes something like this:

Ideation > Research + Storyboard > Draft > Edit > Publish > Newsletter & Social Scheduling

Having a systematic plan and routine helped reduce resistance in execution (eg. out of ideas) and improved my consistency & quality of delivery.

Then again, you’ll likely not get things right on the first try. Experiment with different routines and find the one that fits into your life the best – and keep refining them along the way.

There’s always room for improvement, even after the 100th article.

#3 Even if it’s your passion, you may not like every part of this journey.

And that is OKAY.

I love writing. That’s probably the only reason why I could stick with coming out with 1 or 2 posts consistently nowadays.

But what you probably don’t know is that I either dislike or hate many parts of the processes:

• I dislike the process of thinking about captions (even after running my blog for 2 years).
• I (still) find it overwhelming to reply to comments or messages.
• I hate to edit and design my blog via WordPress (it sucks).
• I feel devastated when I spent 8 – 16 hours coming out with an article and it ended up in the draft forever.

But hey, life is never perfect, right?

As such, the goal here is not about finding things that you’d 100% love (don’t waste your time). If you can find something that you enjoy doing 70% of the time (and it pays), I think you are in an awesome place in life.

Post 101st onwards: Never take anything for granted.

The good thing with milestones, is that they do not have a limit or stopping point.

Without doubt, your 100th post, 100thsales, 100th speech, and 100th YouTube video is an important milestone.

However, from the 101st onwards, it is the start of another new milestone. Focus on lifting the standards of your game, keep learning, and never take anything for granted.

All in all, regardless of whether this is your first No Money Lah’s article, or your 101st article, thanks for being an important part of this journey!

Here’s to more milestones ahead! 🙂

Yi Xuan