It takes real effort to see that you are stuck. Effort and time.
My goal is to write three posts per week here. But aside from announcing podcast episodes, I haven't written anything here for three weeks.
I told myself that I was busy. Easter baking, spring car repairs, dentist appointments and so on. I even took this week off from baking to free up time for writing.
But you know what? The reality is that, yet again, I have tied myself up in knots over 'my audience.'
That is to say, the lovely people who signed up for updates via the website or my podcast page.
They are a varied crew, to say the least. Some are bakers. Others are friends I met through the Right Company. Some are my altMBA coach pals while still others are bread buddies from the Backyard Bakery. Some I know quite well (hello there Cindy!) and others I haven't met at all.
So where does the 'stuck' come from? Two things, really.
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The first thing is that I want to please everyone, all the time. So if I write a detailed baking post, that'll annoy the non-bakers. If I write about the amazing play I saw last week, that will annoy the non-locals. What about a music review, or a book review, or a creativity tip? I tell myself that someone will get annoyed and unsubscribe. So I don't write.
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The second thing is the whole blog->email setup. A post that might be 'off topic' is going to show up in your inbox. Oh dear. Now I'm a spammer too. Better not write.
Maybe this sounds absurd to you. I admit it sounds a little absurd to me, now that I've written it down. That's the point of writing, I guess.
To break out of the cycle of stuckness, I need to continually remind myself of three things. Write-them-on-paper-and-stick-it-by-the-keyboard things:
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This is my 'Whole Self Home Base.' It's what I wrote at the top of the blog, for goodness sake. I need to keep reminding myself that I built this as a home for all my stuff, not just a piece of it.
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I'm not 'pushing' my writing to your inbox. Folks sign up in order to 'pull' it to their inbox. That's a big difference.
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I write to figure things out. To understand what I think. If I can teach folks something new, awesome. But at minimum, I can show the benefits of the practice of writing to figure things out. If I don't write, I can't share how the process works.
Whew. I'm glad I figured that out yet again. I'm off to find a Sharpie and a notepad to get this beside my keyboard.
Then it's time to write some more.
How are you with habits? Got a secret to making them stick? Are you stuck yourself? Let’s talk about it in the comments!