The Struggle is Real

Nobody talks about what it's like to start over from zero when you've already been somewhere.

I used to have momentum. Medium articles that hit. A growing newsletter. Products people bought.

Then life happened. Layoffs, platform changes, personal stuff that derailed everything I'd built.

Now I'm back at the beginning, staring at subscriber counts that feel embarrassingly small compared to where I was. Writing to what feels like an empty room after having real engagement. It's humbling in the worst way.

The hardest part isn't the work itself.

I know how to write. I know how to create products people want. I've done this before.

The hardest part is the silence.

When you're rebuilding, everything takes longer than you remember. That first viral post? It was probably your fiftieth attempt, but you forget that when you're starting over. You remember the success, not the months of writing to three people.

I catch myself comparing current me to past me. This newsletter has 200 subscribers, but I used to have 1,000. This post got 50 views, but I used to get 500. The comparison is poison, but it's hard to stop drinking it.

What makes it worse is that everyone expects you to have learned some magical shortcut.

"Surely it'll be faster this time, right?"

Wrong. Starting over means starting over. The algorithms don't remember you. The audience you built elsewhere doesn't automatically follow you here. The trust you earned before doesn't transfer like rollover minutes.

I'm rebuilding on Ghost because I'm tired of platform dependency. I'm focusing on my newsletter because I want to own my audience. I'm creating simple products because complex ones didn't survive the reset anyway.

But some days, honestly, it feels like screaming into the void.

The breakthrough will come. I know this because I've done it before, and because I see others who've rebuilt better than before. The difference this time is that I'm building for sustainability, not growth. I'm building for ownership, not virality.

I'm building for the long game because the short game already burned me once.

Here's what I'm learning about starting over:

Your old audience was probably too broad anyway. Starting small forces you to be more focused, more useful to the people who actually matter.

The platforms that killed your momentum weren't serving you as well as you thought. If they were, you wouldn't have lost everything when things changed.

Starting over strips away the vanity metrics and forces you to focus on what actually works. Revenue. Real engagement. People who care enough to buy something.

If you're rebuilding too, here's what I want you to know: The struggle is real, but so is your capability. You figured it out before. You'll figure it out again.

This time, just build it to last.

Have you had this struggle? I'd love to hear about it.