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3 Unexpected Benefits of Rereading Your Old Writing

Despite the cringe factor

Kyle Chastain
3 min readMay 2, 2024

I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t like to reread my old writing. It’s not usually very pretty.

But I recently had an enlightening experience doing just that.

The other day, someone clapped for one of my very old posts here on Medium. I don’t even know how this person found the post. It’s over four years old, and it didn’t perform well when I wrote it.

Out of curiosity, I clicked on the old post to have a look. When I got to the page, I discovered it was a post I’d completely forgotten about writing.

The years that had passed between when I wrote it and now gave me enough distance to view it with fresh eyes.

It taught me that — sometimes — I am my own best teacher.

Relearn powerful life lessons

Rereading a post I’d written so long ago reminded me of past important lessons I’d forgotten.

I originally wrote it while I was going through a difficult time, struggling to figure out a way forward.

If you’re anything like me, you’ve written about important lessons from your past experiences. Isn’t that what all writers do in some way?

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Kyle Chastain
Kyle Chastain

Written by Kyle Chastain

On a mission to become a better writer and storyteller | Building my "Insight" newsletter to 10k+ | Create the life you want: https://chastain.substack.com/

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