One year on this platform
🎉A continued celebration of my Substack-iversary
As pledged on Monday, this week’s post is a celebration of my first year on this platform.
My therapist, the one who first encouraged me to join Substack, asked a few weeks ago what I had planned for the anniversary post. I stared blankly at her through the screen (like I did almost four years ago in response to “What are your hobbies?”). She gently reminded me that the occasion was a big deal and how much I’ve grown in the last year.
After I described my spreadsheet schedule for plotting post ideas during specific weeks with holidays and other possible conflicts noted, she said, “You sound like a content creator to me.”
As proud as I am of my work, I still hadn’t grasped its legitimacy.
Looking back
Committing myself to one weekly longform post and a few daily notes gives me something tangible on which to focus. My Substack - and the community I’ve gained through it - leaves me feeling grounded and is an area for growth.
I’m learning not to spiral when I feel overwhelmed. I may whine and complain (such a good example for my children, I know) but I pick myself up and get moving again.
I’m learning that things aren’t all or nothing.
I don’t have to spend hours each day to build a Substack of which I can be proud. I’m modifying things to work for me, like my daily gratitude journal. That daily shift this year has been an anchor to which I can return when I don’t know what else to write.
Sometimes I feel guilty that I don’t write by hand more often. But then I tell myself it’s more important that I write, period.
Here are my favorite posts that I wrote over the last year:
🫱🏻🫲🏿 A critical aspect of diversity and inclusivity is intention.
🧳 Most of the amazing travel experiences we’ve been privileged to enjoy wouldn’t have been the same without our travel agent.
🗣️ I’ve been in therapy for most of my time living in Germany and am grateful for it. Therapy isn’t taboo and should be normalized.
🍋 My post about our family’s trip to Florence and Tuscany last summer contains extensive photographs to accompany the written descriptions, and that makes it immersive; re-reading it in preparation for this post let me feel like I was there again. I particularly like how I included superlatives.
🇯🇵 One of my most popular posts was that about our two-week trip to Japan. I tried something different from my previous style and placed photographs at the end of relevant sections instead of interspersing them throughout. I also discussed each city generally instead of a strict day-by-day format. These choices allowed a cleaner reading experience.
🌈 Before I intentionally thought about content pillars, most of my posts fit within the ones I’ve since set. This is one of the few that was a standalone - where I talked about my experience having a miscarriage.
👋🏻 I used my platform to express my emotions about a friend moving away. I almost felt like I was speaking directly to her when I wrote.
🎄 I brought readers on a journey of my favorite Christmas market after four Christmases in Germany.
👵🏻 I hesitated to include this piece in my list of favorites because I didn’t want it to seem like I was choosing one grandparent over the other. But ultimately I decided to include it because this piece is the first time (to my knowledge) that my words were used in my absence; I’m still so grateful to my mom for choosing to honor me by selecting words that I chose to honor my grandmother by reading from this at the prayer service. (And, if I’m being completely honest - I mention all of my grandparents in this piece, so I’ve included them all on a technicality!)
Looking forward
In my New Year’s post, I wrote: “Perhaps I should work smarter, not harder, in 2026?” I’ve already found a way to do that; as I described in that post, I plan to write at least one Note per day as a daily gratitude journal. I’ve missed a few days already, but I always realize it the next day and quickly make up for it.
Here’s how I’m already working smarter: I have a template in the Keep Notes app on my phone with a heading (using a ? for the day number) and the link to the post where I outlined the goal.
Then I can just copy and paste that into a new Note, update the number, and jot something down, perhaps with a picture. It probably saves me two minutes, but sometimes two minutes are everything when it comes to habit creation.
How else will I grow over this next year on Substack?
💬 I invite you to join me in my Substack chat! I haven’t decided exactly how I’ll use it, but this is an audience of grace and I trust you’ll grant me that in the process.
🤔 I have a question for any current Substackers: how did you decide when to turn on paid subscriptions?
Thank You
This year is going to bring a lot of change; as I’ve shared, our family’s time living in Germany will be concluding as we move back to the U.S. this summer.
I’m grateful for those of you who have been on this journey with me so far and I’m eager to see what’s to come!