#100daysofmarketing

I did the #100daysofcode challenge last year and it was a runaway success. Lifelog is the highlight result of it.

I had a long push-pull relationship with coding then. A month or two of enthusiasm doing a coding course, then drop off for months or years. It was the #100daysofcode challenge that got me to stick to it for an enough amount of time, cross a certain level of competency threshold so that I kept coding. Having a project like Lifelog that I’m interested to keep working on helped keep me going too.

Here’s a crazy brain fart I had: Since I’m struggling with learning and doing marketing for Lifelog, what if I did the same challenge as I did for coding, but for marketing instead?

#100daysofmarketing

A quick search on Twitter showed that it’s already a thing, so nothing new under the sun. But the parallels between me learning marketing and me learning coding is uncanny:

• I had a few start-stops with marketing so far too. Enthusiasm for a month, fading away to ZERO tweeting/content for many months after. This has to stop.

• The same emotional baggage I had for coding is not too far from the one I’m struggling with for marketing too. With coding, it was this emotional refusal to learn anything resembling math, or logic/technical. I preferred the visual and tangibility of design. Coding felt cold, and boring then. Likewise, I’m finding myself emotionally blocked when it comes to doing the self-promotion needed for marketing. I always preferred to go unnoticed, manifest quietly, do my own thing in my own little corner. Different emotion and baggage yes, but in the same shape that self-sabotages my own efforts at learning and becoming competent.

• I’m just not very good at marketing yet, and without crossing a threshold of activity and work, I don’t get much feedback on my efforts that loop back to inform and motivate me, in a virtuous loop. I fall off every single time because I got bored and discouraged creating content into the void. But I solved that problem during #100daysofcode, so maybe #100daysofmarketing might work too!

I’m excited! Mostly convinced that doing the #100daysofmarketing challenge will help me push past my current wall.

The only concern is, how do I balance with my coding and making efforts? A good issue to ponder over and to plan for…