Over the past couple of weeks I have been tardy about writing and uploading fresh blog posts. Perhaps you noticed? Well, one of my former health-care clients did and she emailed me that she hadn’t seen a post since February and inquired if I was ‘still in business.’ Oh my, that was a huge wake up call! Yes, I am still in business and yes, I acknowledge my tardiness in the area of blog posts.
So, what lessons can I learn from this?
Well, one key learning for me has been that while there will always be pressing priorities that I might consider to be my key focus at any given time, other routine activities and outputs, like writing blog posts, serve a different purpose and are also in need of consistent action. As I write this I cannot help smiling as Dene, my husband, has often emphasized the importance of establishing a habit of writing blogs.
A second learning is that I made a few basic assumptions, and these have been exposed. My assumptions were that because I had not advertised my website in any big way,
I thought that ‘few people’ are actually reading my blogs, and that I could ‘get way with’ not writing for a while, as nobody would really notice, or care. Well, with hindsight I recognize that this might not be the case.
A third lesson, and one which we all know so well, and of which I am reminding myself as I write this, is that it takes consistent focused effort to establish any new habit.
For me blogging is a task that I’d intended to develop into a habit but had not quite followed through with.
A fourth lesson that this has reminded me about is that when we know that others notice what we are or are not doing, it changes the significance of the task, from one of a ‘personal focus’ to one of ‘holding ourselves accountable’ to others. That introduces a different level of significance to the task at hand and can aid to strengthen our commitment to follow through.
If you are one of my coaching clients and you’ve been reading this, I imagine that this post has brought a smile to your face, in that you recognize that as a coach I too need to be accountable both to myself as well as to my readers.
So, in the interests of transparency and a renewed commitment to ‘blogging’ I hope that today’s message will encourage you too to take up the challenge of sharing your thoughts and insights with others through your blog posts. And, if like me, you miss the mark, see it for what it is, and get back on track. After all isn’t it more important to be moving in the right direction than to be doing nothing at all? I wish us all ‘happy blogging!’
