Blew It! Lessons Learned

Boom! Just like that, my blogging streak came to an end. I knew it was coming, but just like people can see the train wreck developing, I couldn’t stop it. Well, not easily. At least I learned a few things from the process so next time around (i.e. starting today), I will hopefully have an easier time.

For Gosh Sakes, Plan!

Nobody likes feeling like a hypocrite. Well, that’s me today. I knew I would be leaving for Japan and that it would be tough to keep up the daily blogging regimen.

What would I tell my customers to do? Plan ahead. Queue up enough posts so that while you’re away your posting will happen automatically. That’s what I would tell people. Did I do that? Well, if I did I wouldn’t be writing this post 😉

Short answer: no. Why not? I could complain about not having enough time. An honest answer would be I didn’t use my time well enough to prepare. Self-reflection sucks, but it’s how we improve ourselves. Being honest is the only way to find the source of one’s failings. 

Ya Gotta Wanna!

I blogged for 82 days straight. Not bad, but not what I was going for. Could I have kept going? Sure. I had jetlag, but I had enough time. The problem was my motivation for daily blogging wasn’t high enough to push through the brain fog.

Why not? There are plenty of statistics that demonstrate the business benefits of daily blogging. On the other hand, human psychology isn’t swayed by statistics. Humans fear loss more than they crave gains. If you haven’t seen the benefits from daily blogging, you don’t fear losing those benefits. If there’s no fear, there’s less motivation.

I’m not saying I didn’t see benefits from daily blogging. What I’m saying is that the short time I was at it didn’t bring enough benefit to make me fear the consequences of stopping. Blogging isn’t a short-term project. The best results come from staying at it.

Where to From Here?

I intend to blog daily starting with today’s post. More planning and content pre-generation is in the cards. I also think there are a lot of topics I need to cover in more detail so I will probably revisit some topics I’ve blogged about before. Getting back into a daily blogging routine may be challenging, but I’m still intending to make it stick. It’s early for new year’s resolutions, but as they say, there’s no better time than the present to start something new.

Here’s to another new beginning. Thank you for being on the journey with me 🙂