I’m still finding my “thing”

On writing without a clear goal; writing to just figure it out

It’s a Friday morning at a café in Toronto. It rained last night but it’s just warm enough to sit outside for the first real patio day of the year. I’ve got my headphones on and a coffee beside me. I came here with the objective to do some writing.

I open a blank document and start with some journaling, which is how I usually start just to build some momentum and get the ideas flowing. I write about what’s on my mind, how I’m feeling, and what I’ve been thinking about lately. But a topic, the thing that evolves into the essay, just isn’t coming this week. It’s a blocker I hit some weeks, where I know I want to write something but I just don’t know what it is.

Every writer and creator I look at seems to have a thing, their thing, a specific lane or a unifying theme that ties their work together and gives people a reason to follow along. I see it everywhere: the fitness trainer, the AI newsletter, or the personal finance guru who breaks down investing for millennials. They all found their thing and built an entire world around it.

Recently, a new person joined my team and we had a conversation in a group call where everyone shared their interests as a way to get to know each other. Everyone took their turn sharing things like cooking or a specific sport they grew up playing, and as it became my turn, I found myself wondering what my interests actually were lately. While my interests have directionally stayed the same over the years, they are also constantly evolving, and none of them feel so deep that I would dedicate everything to just one. Ten years ago, my passion was D&D and photography, while four years ago it was Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and 3D printing. Lately, it’s been Magic the Gathering, writing, going to the gym, and exploring the city with my fiancée, along with a sprinkle of learning guitar, reading, and playing video games to unwind. Someone on the team who already knows me joked that my interests are always changing, and they were right. I still don’t have a “thing.”

I started writing to find mine.

Over a dozen of these essays later, the vision has gotten a little clearer. I like writing about my experience with AI and reflecting on personal growth. Sometimes I realize I’m writing for a younger version of myself, someone who could have used the perspective I have now. Sometimes I write about what I’m struggling with or share a little about the niche interests I have. But if you asked me to describe my Substack in one sentence, I’d hesitate because there is no single “thing” yet, and that bothers me more than I expected it to.

Part of what makes it hard is the invisible critic. It isn’t any real person, since I can’t point to anyone specific who would judge me for this, but it’s more like a limiting belief I carry. It’s the vague sense that putting yourself out there invites scrutiny from colleagues, family, or people you haven’t spoken to in years, people whose opinions shouldn’t matter but somehow still do.

The honest version is actually worse. If I saw someone I knew doing exactly what I’m doing, posting weekly essays about their personal growth, I might quietly cringe at first but I also might envy them for their bravery. I might even do both at the same time. The judgment I’m afraid of is really just my own, projected outward.

But then I look at what I’ve actually built.

Of my essays so far, none of them have performed particularly well, I’ve realized that Substack doesn’t have the organic reach of Instagram or TikTok. There is no algorithm carrying you to strangers, which is partly because I haven’t really tried to “optimize” by posting frequent notes or playing the engagement game. Every reader who finds this finds it on purpose, and that makes every word feel more intentional. Each essay makes me proud of something I shared with the world. Like the photography I used to post on Instagram, each essay is a little artifact or proof of what I was thinking at a specific point in time. It’s an archive that exists simply because I chose to make it.

If I could go back to December 2025, right before I published the first one, I wouldn’t give myself advice. I’d just tell myself that writing has been deeply rewarding, as a way to share and to think out loud. Each week is a new challenge to think, to reflect, and to share a small piece of yourself with the world. Sometimes the writing is creative, sometimes it’s therapeutic, and other times it’s educational, but it’s always work that I’m proud of and I think that alone is enough to keep going.

I think what I was looking for, the “thing”, was just permission. I wanted permission to write and share without a niche, to explore without a brand, and to just get started despite not having it all figured out. But that permission was never going to come from finding the right topic, having the best idea, or cracking some magic formula. It was just going to come from doing it enough times so that the uncertainty stopped feeling like failure and started feeling like the process.