In just a flash, summer has passed, and fall is starting to roll around. It’s September 1st, so of course, expect Medium writers everywhere to write about their past month’s performance and next month’s goals.
I’m no different and will write one of these earnings reports, especially with how different August has been compared to the previous eight months.
I only published three articles in August.
This number is far less than the 20 articles I had been averaging before and perhaps one of my lowest-producing numbers ever.
What happened for this to happen, and how did it affect my Medium performance?
Well, today, I will share the story behind my inactivity, how it affected my Medium earnings, and whether I will be more active on Medium going forward.
A New Side Hustle And The Coaching Fiasco
My recent inactivity on Medium really started in July when I began training more compared to previous months.
What I didn’t account for was that suddenly switching from training two to three hours per day to five hours made it extremely difficult to continue my work writing about investments.
First, I had no energy left.
Second, I had no writing ideas.
Since I was training and thinking about badminton for the entire day every day, it was nearly impossible for me to come up with any writing ideas outside of badminton.
That was when my idea to create badminton videos was revived.
Spending so much time on badminton naturally led to more badminton ideas, which made making videos on the topic a fantastic side hustle for my brother and me.
But even if we’re making more videos and spending more time training, there still should have been time and energy for me to write on Medium.
What truly killed my blogging productivity was a coaching fiasco that put me in a horrible state of mind for the entirety of the summer.
About two weeks into August, our managers decided to suddenly change things up. Coaches were no longer allowed to attend training for free due to “cost and other players complaining about us not paying.”
This was completely bullsh*t.
They wanted us to pay $30 per class to cover court rental and shuttlecock fees. Under normal circumstances, this was fine, and we coaches have done that in our small group classes that did not include any kids.
But we all knew that cost wasn’t the real reason. Otherwise, this would have been a problem eight months ago when the classes were significantly smaller. Plus, our managers almost immediately told us we could train for free again after my brother and I told them we would no longer join the group training.
The real reason was that our managers were just being petty.
In particular, the situation was with my brother, me, and another coach. Before the summer, we were asked whether we wanted to train or coach more.
We all said that training was ideal, and our head coach gave the green light.
Then, a week into training, we were pulled out to coach, and I was hit with a slew of paragraphs telling me to do my job when I refused. Another one of our coaches had complained more seriously, too.
This was the breaking point. All the little things in the past year have added up and made me irritable.
It was a Friday when we went out to eat hotpot when I realized I needed a significant change.
I had sat down at a table with my brother before my parents came when another person put an extra set of dishes on our table and started swearing at us for no reason.
That’s when I snapped.
I stood up, put the set of dishes back on his table, and started arguing with him. I, who people usually considered a reserved and chill person, had my fists clenched and ready to take an eye out in a crowded restaurant setting.
All my life principles I had built up through the years went out the window, but I was fortunately stopped by my parents just in time.
Typically, I respond in a very controlled and logical manner to these situations. I usually brush it off as, “This guy has issues, and there’s no benefit in picking a fight.”
Yet, here I was, sitting at my table, with both middle fingers pointed up and mouthing “f*ck you” to the person who provoked me.
This was the culmination of suppressed anger from the last couple of months. Between students disrespecting me as a coach, the antics of my training partners in the group training, my incompetent managers, and an overall feeling of not progressing in any area of life, I’ve been navigating a bubble of anger that had been continuously growing for a prolonged period.
Working with an anger cloud in your head is less than ideal. Thoughts don’t flow smoothly, and it’s too easy to give up when things don’t go your way.
That’s ultimately why I barely got anything done in August.
Every day that I had to go to the badminton center (and I pretty much had to go every day), I left with a sour attitude and came home not wanting to do anything.
Being angry is energy-consuming, and that’s costly.
The Power Of Residual Income
Since I didn’t write anything until the end of August, I only made $151.91 from the Medium Partner Program.
Screenshot From Author
This was actually a number I was fairly impressed with, however.
Compared to the previous 12 months, I earned more in August 2024 than in four of the other months.
Screenshot From Author
This is a testament to the power of residual income and how the work you do now pays off in the future.
Take a look at my top five articles ranked by earnings in August and pay attention to the date published:
Screenshot From Author
I have two articles published in May this year, one in March, one last year, and another in 2022, that’s generating most of my income in August 2024.
Work I had put in months or even years ago continued to pay me today.
This is why you should never give up.
It’s fairly normal to see mediocre earnings at the start, and I know it’s demotivating when you don’t get the dopamine hit from seeing your views spike after publishing one article.
But trust me, as long as you focus on improving and providing value, your work will pay off. That’s why I haven’t given up on blogging.
My Medium Comeback
After five years and publishing 621 articles on Medium, it would be a shame to give up now.
There have been multiple instances during training or while I was coaching when the thought occurred that I could be much more efficient with my time.
In particular, one day, I stood around for an hour watching my student put zero effort into practicing footwork the way I had talked about when I asked myself, “Is this really worth my time?”
I essentially got paid $80 to babysit a kid for two hours, which many people would be happy with.
But I was unfulfilled.
If money was the whole story, I would have just continued my life working in luxury real estate. I got paid 10X my coaching rate in that career.
Ultimately, all these side hustles and work I do to earn money is to fuel my dreams of competing in badminton full-time.
I needed to do something that paid off in the future.
Coaching ungrateful kids and dealing with poor management just wasn’t moving me in the right direction, so I decided to reduce my coaching hours to the bare minimum.
The management team would undoubtedly be unhappy if I had traded all my coaching hours but still attended the group training, so I decided to quit that as well.
I told my managers that starting in September, I could coach on Fridays and Saturdays and have set strict boundaries. Effectively, I went from coaching approximately 50 hours per month to less than 20.
The idea is to coach enough so that I still retain the privilege of dropping in at the center with my brother and other friends to practice on our own and redirect the time I save toward working on my side hustles, such as the YouTube channel and writing on Medium.
Eventually, the goal is to raise the income level from these side hustles so I can travel and train abroad.
And to do this, I have already redeveloped my schedule to dedicate mornings to blogging.
Instead of creating a publishing and earnings goal as I had previously done, this month will be more about time. I will spend approximately three hours every morning writing or researching for my writing.
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