Blogs work...if you work them

So I jumped on the blog bandwagon pretty early on. I had a couple good mentors who told me blogging would be all the rage, why to blog, how to blog, that it would become an essential business tool, etc. Guess what - they were right. There's only one problem - although I've had my oldest blog since 2005, I still haven't mastered the art of regular posting!

And that, more than almost anything else, is the key to blogging success. Of course, it helps to write content that passes the 5 Cs of Quality Content* test...but presuming you can do that, you still must blog often.

Even knowing how important frequency is to my blogging efficacy, I somehow don't find time to do it. If I'm honest, one of the biggest reasons is the perfectionist in me. Meaning...I spend way too much time working on the last of the 5 Cs. But I've recently begun to adopt a little motto: Done is better than perfect. So I'm hoping - seriously, really, desperately hoping - to put that motto into practice here. Yes, as an editor it pains me to see mistakes in people's writing. But it's like whacking both elbows simultaneously to publish a post of my own and later see errors in it.

Done is better than perfect. Done is better than perfect. Done is better than perfect.

While I do not owe that little mantra specifically to Steven Pressfield, I do highly recommend his book, The War of Art, to anyone who needs a swift and very hard kick in the ass to let go of their excuses, silence their inner critic, and just get to work to get it done! Reading this book literally felt like someone grabbing me by the throat and holding me against the wall demanding, "What's your excuse? Really? That's all you got? Get over it and GET IT DONE!"

And that's what Done Is Better Than Perfect is all about.

You've heard the old joke: They had to postpone the meeting of Procrastinators Anonymous because everyone wanted to wait to do it tomorrow.

Procrastination sucks. As my brilliant personal trainer, Scott White pointed out to me, look at the play on words...simply remove the "in," move one little R, and suddenly you have "pro castration." Who wants that?? None of us! So why do we do it? Because we're perfectionists and we're hiding behind our excuses. Get that book. You'll get over the excuses.

Not blogging sucks. Being great at what you do but without the clients to show for it sucks. Worrying sucks. Struggling sucks. Disorganization sucks. I've experienced all of them. Right now - my goal is just to get blogging.

Catch you here again soon - I promise!

* The 5 Cs of Quality Content: CLEAR, CONCISE, COMPELLING, CONSISTENT, CORRECT.

Send an e-mail to QualityContent@WordsMadeEasy.com and I'll send you my full report explaining each of the 5 Cs in detail.