This is 30 Days of Blogging: Day 22
As I’ve been working through this 30 day blogging challenge, it’s definitely becoming clear what my biggest hindrances are to writing consistently.
I definitely don’t have solutions or workarounds yet, but the first step to solving a problem is identifying it, right?
Hopefully later I can come back to add tips on handling them but for now I’ll just have to identify them.
1. Family Issues
And I’m talking extended family – parents, grandparents, in-laws. Apparently some people just never grow up and the issues that arise from this really affect relationships! It’s so incredibly hard sometimes and very very draining. And unfortunately I know that this is not uncommon.
These issues have a way of popping up unexpectedly and even though I try not to allow other people to control my emotions they do affect me. It sucks, I don’t like it, but that’s the way it is.
So when I’m emotionally drained from family issues I notice I just don’t have the emotional energy or creativity I need to write.
This occasionally happens in marriage, too. While we generally have a healthy relationship, we definitely have conflict and it’s also draining. Although these are less frequent, they usually cut a little deeper and hurt a little more so I definitely am down for the count on creativity and emotional capacity when Michael and I have things to work out.
2. Baby/Kids
Another demanding and unpredictable factor! I never want my writing, work, or anything else to be more important than my baby, but I still aim to have balance and be able to pursue the things I like to do and be able to work some.
On good days, Baby E will take a nice long nap and I can write a post and get edited and published all in one go. Easy. On other days, she won’t settle. She’ll wake up constantly and/or be fussy and writing is impossible. So this is another huge factor in being able to write or not. I know that as time goes on and she gets older that we’ll have more of a routine, but who can predict what a kid will do at any stage?
So as things have gone the past few days with baby E needing mommy more than usual, writing hasn’t happened. I sure have tried, but there just comes a point where the writing/creative process gets interrupted too many times for anything to come of it.
3. Perfectionism / Embarrassment
Perfectionists raise your hands! 🙋🏼♀️ While I have significantly improved in the perfectionism department, this still remains a challenge. I certainly have a mentality of “if you can’t do it right (ie perfectly) then don’t do it all.” This is where progress dies.
I really only want to post when I have a great blog idea with solid points and good solutions. Because that’s what a “good” blog is and there’s no point in blogging at all if every post isn’t a hot topic with the right key words and SEO. And maybe that’s true.
But you know what’s not true? That everyone starts there. That anyone could just decide that’s how there blog is going to be and ✨ poof ✨ out of nowhere you have a perfect blog that professionals say will make you money.
Um no. It’s going to take practice. A lot of it. And learning and trial and error and failure and time. It’s going to take bad blog posts – and a lot of them – to get to good blog posts. I’ve let this stop me for five years and that’s a shame.
Don’t be like me! Just start and don’t stop.
