I did it. I crossed the finish line. My goal for the month of January was to blog every day of the month.
First, the fears: I was afraid I’d run out of ideas. I was afraid I’d run out of steam. I was afraid I didn’t have that much work worth sharing. I was afraid the critics would line up.
Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Maybe? (But who cares?)
If I can do it, so can you. Here are some lessons I learned along the way.
1. Blogging every day does not mean blogging every day. The beauty of blogging is scheduling posts. Some days are more filled with creative energy than others, so I’d often write three posts one day and none on others. I could schedule my posts to see how I was tracking. (I’m actually writing this post early on Saturday, January 24). I missed a few days in early January, so I just extended my finish date to February 3… allowing me to keep my commitment without beating myself up.
2. Good and finished (published) is better than perfect and never shipped. Seth Godin has helped me see and embrace this truth. He even has a Ship It journal. There are probably typos that I missed, grammatical mistakes here and there, wonky formatting. But now my work is out there, shipped, shared with the world.
3. Blogging every day for a month is a habit that begets other habits. In other words, it’s a keystone habit as defined by Charles Duhigg in his book, The Power of Habit
4. My work matters. I don’t mean this from a place of arrogance. Instead, what I mean is that ideas I share have added value to the lives of others. How do I know this? Not from likes on Facebook or retweets on Twitter, but from constructive feedback from those I trust. The highest compliment in the world for me to receive is: I had never thought about it that way before.
5. It puts blogging every week in perspective. I know now I can achieve my annual goal of blogging every week. I may even increase it to twice a week. And now I have all this amazing content I can share again (repost) throughout the year. Blogging every day for a month has taught me that blogging once or twice a week is doable, very doable.
6. Doing work that matters is fun. Awakening the muse within is a delightful process. You should try it.
What about you? What project have you been avoiding that could use a month-long push to get the pieces moving?
P.S. In case you’re curious about future frequency, my plan is to post next Monday and Tuesday and then once a week on Mondays after that.