Hey there! We’re here to celebrate today, of course. We’ve completed one year on this passion project, this blog. I remember envisioning this site to be a self-improvement journal, hoping to pen down everything I wanted to share with the world. To be honest, this is not a celebration; this is a failure story.

It’s true, we’ve failed.

A year back, I had HUGE plans for where I saw myself going with this. I’m an avid reader so I evidently wanted to share the enthusiasm with other like-minded readers. Reading books has always been a constant in my life; writing has been another. I would have never imagined this blog turning out so empty in its pages. The stories I etch in my mind are many, I have so much to let people know. The books I’m reading, the things I’m doing, the people I’m meeting. I wanted to talk about my struggles at work and with leading a happy, healthy life. The intent was to help people navigate their own personal growth issues whether they be on an individual level or at a professional level. Whew! I almost think of this year as an opportunity that I blew up.

Why am I writing this failure story today?

One, because like the banner says – this is a judgment-free zone. Two, because I want to learn from this. I want to preserve my feelings on a blog post that’s going to stay on this site. And that’s the point of this post. Figuring out where we went wrong the entire year. I say “we” because although I draft most of the content, this journey has never been mine alone. Vedant and me, we started PY together with a dream to pursue our individual spaces of interest. I wanted to write, he wanted to analyze. Also, the fact that he has such strong, amazing opinions on stuff made us more inclined to integrate those ideas into our posts as well. And honestly, we’re still working on a lot of stuff together; still navigating through this tiny journey at blogging together. Oh, the toll that social media has taken on us the entire year. Trying to figure out what works best for the algo. We’re not giving up on either the blog or the social channels. We’re just looking to better understand the areas where we can better connect with our viewership. The coming year, we’re gonna try and be consistent at publishing our ideas at a consistent rate instead of letting them expire under drafts.

And in light of everything, it’s not that we’ve wasted a year. It’s just that we’ve lost focus of what we really wanted PY to be about. And honestly, it’s because I tend to be a perfectionist. No, I’m not saying this in the slightest perspective of perfectionism being a good thing. Nope! Perfectionism denies you the space to make mistakes to the point where you’re just consistently inactive. Every step turns into an opportunity to fail at something, to make a mistake. This year, we ended up learning very little about what we really want to talk about. And that’s what we are hoping to change next year. We’re aiming to post regularly on Tuesdays at 11 a.m. IST. Also, we’re coming up with a personal weekly – A Week in Our Life, where we’ll give you a glimpse into our personal life. It’s not much but it’ll help us connect with you and review how we’ve been growing through our weeks.

Here, I’m taking this moment to pen down what we want PY to be in the coming year. We want it to be a platform, a safe space where we can convene and talk about personal growth and mental health. Personally, I want to share my life in these pages; I want to let people know that they are not alone. And throughout this one-year journey, our vision at PY has not changed. We want to make the world a productive place, a happier place. We want to help people realize their potential and reach their goals. But we also want them to be kind to themselves. We’re trying to create a balance, an integration and hopefully, this year will bring us more clarity.

Trying to look at things the bright side through our failure, but we hope you’ll be an essential part of our journey next year as well.

Productively Yours,

Ved and Ri