I love blogging, I really do. And yet, somehow, I didn't do it. And then I have to ask myself, "Why? Why didn't I do something that I love for so long?"
I mean, I could make excuses, some really good ones, too. I was editing a manuscript. I was taking art classes. I updated my website. These are all valid reasons for not blogging, and yet still, they don't seem adequate.
While I don't want to be hard on myself for not writing, I do want to explore why I didn't write so that I don't do it again. Why wouldn't I take the time to do something I love to do?
As near as I can remember the first thing that happened was that I just didn't post for a week or two. "Oh, I'll do that later," I said to myself, "I need to focus on my manuscript right now." Well, "later" turned into several months, which was not my intention at all.
After not posting for so long, I then completely forgot about my blog. How could you have forgotten about your blog, you might ask? The answer is, I don't know, but I guess I must have. I just forgot I had one, forgot it was something I used to like to do.
The next question I have to ask myself is, "How did I come to remember my blog?" Well, I updated my website, which has a link to my blog and then it came to my awareness that a) I had a blog, and b) I hadn't posted in five months. And then I remembered how much I loved blogging, how excited I was when I started the blog, and that was when I renewed my commitment to writing posts.
And so now, after careful exploration, I have discovered a few things that might help me blog more regularly, and I will share them with you, my dear readers:
- Set a Specific Intention: Note that I used the word "intention", not "goal". And so my intention is to write a blog post weekly, which does not mean I will actually write weekly, just that I intent to. And to even be more specific, I hereby declare Monday as Blog Day, a great way to start the week.
- Write That Intention Down and Tell Others About it: In writing it down and having others bear witness to it, you are more likely to follow through. That was my mistake before – I had always planned to write weekly, but I didn't tell any one about my intention, and so I was not accountable to anyone, and so had no reason to follow through. In announcing my commitment to my blog to my readers, I already feel more committed because I like to keep my promises. And so if I said I would blog weekly, by Golly, I will.
- Be Gentle When the Intention Doesn't Lead to Action: Being hard on yourself isn't actually that motivating – it is gentleness that eases us back into action. And so if I don't blog one Monday, I don't have to beat myself up – I can commit to blogging on another day that week, or if that's not possible, give myself permission to skip a week and blog on the following Monday.
- Remember Why You Want to Do It: When we can connect with our motivation of why we want to engage in a certain activity, it is much easier to remember that we want to do it, not that we have to. It was my fond memories of the experience of blogging that brought me back to post. We have to remember why we want to do the things we love to do. For me, I love writing things and letting them go, knowing that anyone in the world could read them. I love feeling connected with clients outside of sessions, offering my writings as a way to support others when they are not in my office. And I just love plain old' writing, that's really the heart of it.
© ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, Angela Dawn MacKay
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