I’m 12 days into my challenge to post every day. And something weird just happened. Yesterday, I forgot! Just clean forgot. No excuses. It totally and utterly just didn’t occur to me.
A sprinkle of social accountability
The idea was: saying it out loud would make it real.
I love pushing myself into doing something by announcing loud and proud to a goal or challenge. I always have done. I remember when I was 17 just telling everyone I was going travelling before university with no idea how, where (or even why, to be honest).
I roped in my best friend and talked about it a lot. Before we knew it, it was real.
I kind of created a situation where she couldn’t back out either. I didn’t even realise I’d done that, but hey… sorry hun! (I don’t think she regretted it.)
I do the same in business too.
I had a few months without a work visa at the beginning of this year. My workmate asked me what I was going to do with all my spare time and I just turned to her and on the spot decided. ‘I’m going to write a book’. And from that moment, I had to. I was writing a book.
That’s what this blogging challenge was to me.
Saying I’d be blogging every day set an expectation that I’d be, er, blogging every day.
Because people anticipate you will do the things you say you’re gonna do. Show up when you set a date. Write when you tell them you’re going to publish.
But while creating consistency is superlative in any business – meeting client expectations, sticking to agreements, being present and visible in your marketing – it also rather sucks.
Because pressure, much?
As a mini lil’ one-person outfit, the pressure of weekly newsletters is sometimes overwhelming, especially of you don’t schedule and get ahead.
The pressure of a daily blog is unimaginable. I don’t quite get why people do this to themselves, I really don’t. Thinking of a new and interesting idea every day is frankly a bit of a drag. (Hence ranty off-topic shizzle like this!)
So even though it’s a phenomenal challenge, highly rewarding, creating great consistency for my readers and an enormous bank of content, I’m counting down the days.
18 … 17 … 16 …
All I’m hoping is it won’t be consistently difficult.
And there are signs of my writing getting quicker and easier. Very small signs. But signs nonetheless that blogging is getting easier with practice. So maybe some of the consistency is paying off…
Provided I don’t forget!
How do you improve your writing? Let me know in the comments below.
Leave a Reply