As I’ve been pushing myself day in and day out with marketing, I’ve been checking my numbers on a routine basis.

From the stats I get on Medium all the way down to the stats I have on my new site.

For me, the numbers are exciting. I’m curious how many people visit my site and how long they stick around. I wonder how many people read the work that I put out day in and day out.

I think we have innate curiosity for numbers and our stats. We all want to be performing well and hitting our expectations.

But that’s where numbers can be dangerous. That is numbers that don’t hit our expectations.

For a lot of people they obsess over the numbers and the numbers control their actions.

They stop that consistent posting and pushing their posts on social media.

They give up on a project that they were passionate about.

Some get worried even before launching something that their numbers will be low.

While I’ve said I’m not that big into numbers, that was due to some of those reasons above. I was aware of those types of things mainly because I experienced them.

I stopped uploading videos to Youtube several years ago because of my poor stats.

Even now there are times where I’m a little salty when I read how others experiments faired on Medium when mine can’t even compare.

Now I know comparison is a dangerous thing and clearly I haven’t sunk so low as to think writing posts every day is pointless. I think it helps.

But this experience has given me a new perspective about numbers and stats.

Because while our stats, as great or as pitiful as they are, do not matter compared to the work, I would argue that they do on some level.

They matter to us because we have reasons connected to our actions. I’ve been consistently checking my new site stats because I built it on a powerful principal.

I want people to be more confident of themselves.

Yeah there will be times where we feel shitty or doubt ourselves, but I want to provide tools that can bounce people back up and do something.

For me, those numbers represent people who are looking for help and are finding it. It’s warming because the numbers are showing that what I’m doing is working. It justifies and validates my actions and intentions.

The same goes for here. Sure my views and reads are not that great compared to others. However I am still grateful for the readers that I do get and the support I do get from writing on here every day.

But the numbers also prompt something more than that. By looking at the numbers it can tell us what we can do better.

Numbers, while detrimental to our confidence and our momentum, can also teach us how we can recover from it. How we react to our statistics tells a lot about ourselves and our views around those numbers.

At first, we may be discouraged, jealous even of our numbers and others stats. Perhaps the reason that is is because our motivation is entirely selfish. Whether it’s for fortune or glory, we are only looking at our own advancement.

While it’s true that we are business for a profit and we do like money, it shouldn’t be the prime objective. We’ll lose motivation quickly as many can attest to, including myself.

Or maybe we are scared of the numbers. We’re familiar with those dangers and we want to avoid temptation. While it certainly feels safe and we can continue moving forward with our vision, I don’t believe it helps us to grow.

We put out the same stale content, oblivious as to what’s working and what isn’t. We get stumped frequently and we’re left in a state of “what’s next?”

But I believe the best kind of approach is what I have been acquiring over the past week: curiosity. Of course this takes discipline. There are times where I am still kind of salty about my results. Some days don’t hit our expectations.

This curiosity is what is driving me to think about what I should do:

Should I be reading more self improvement articles?

Should I be reading more writing articles?

What will happen if I engage with people more?

What sort of topics should I write about?

It’s this curiosity that prompts me to experiment. It’s what is driving me to continue experimenting and to not beat myself up over the results. I won’t deny, getting some poor results sucks. But there is no point in harbouring regret.

Instead, the numbers prompt me into action. It prompts me to learn more about my audience while I continue to do my thing day after day.

Because of this, I feel my actions are more calculated as opposed to focused solely on getting the posts out there. And that has made a difference.

To your growth!

Eric S Burdon

Yesterday I didn’t get a chance to get out as I thought it was going to rain all day. Nevertheless it didn’t stop me from hustling. I worked further on some client work and spent my time indoors. There was a cool breeze rushing in and for the first time this week, my room felt rather cool.

Things are going pretty smoothly on my end though as I’ve gotten a good balance between client work and working towards my goals.

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