Why I Publish Bad Blog Posts
Yes, I’ve written bad blog posts and published them.
For any of you who follow me or read my blog, this shouldn’t be a surprise.They can’t all be “War and Peace.”
The thing that’s difficult isn’t writing good content and publishing it—it’s publishing work that’s not that amazing.
It hurts me sometimes if what I write doesn’t feel massively inspiring, insightful, unique, or actionable.
The goal is to get to a place of consistent, high-quality output.
That can’t happen without publishing the bad stuff along the way.This is not a cheap, disguised excuse to pump out crummy content—that would be deliberately cutting corners to reduce the effort required.That would be consistently low quality.Seneca said something like: “in order to know and understand good wine, one must drink a lot of bad, even terrible wine.”I think you get the point.If you want to be great, you have to forgive yourself for not being great right at this very second and understand that you’re going to have to be embarrassed for a little while as you figure it all out.
2 Minute Action
Publish something today.Perform the speech that’s not quite ready yet.Implement a new lesson plan that’s almost all the way there.Unless you’re a brain surgeon, the risk of failing isn’t that high.Go for the gusto, today.
The Part of Perfectionism Everyone Struggles With
If I’m being honest with you, writing every day is hard.
Especially considering the parameters I gave myself.
Each post must:
- Be in my own voice
- Have my unique viewpoint
- Be quickly digestible
- Be actionable
When I committed to writing every day, I realized that this was big.
Coming up with a fresh concept, in my own words, that was easy to consume, and that also demanded a discrete action that could be achieved in 2 minutes or less is a pretty difficult challenge.
So, what happened?
Sometimes posts didn’t go out at the right time. I travel a lot so timezones have messed with my automated triggers that send out emails and tweets.
Sometimes I am finishing my workday at a weird hour and I’m exhausted—but I still have to write. It’s painful.
Sometimes I miss typos, fail to get the point across or make the post too short to really communicate the point.
Basically, I fail a lot.
And however much I fail, it feels like I’m failing 10 times that.
The point isn’t to make it perfect. Well, at least not today. Or tomorrow.
The point is to constantly approach the upper limit.
The point is to ride the asymptote of improvement as far over to perfect as I can.
The only way to do that is by writing, reviewing, adapting, testing, getting feedback, and writing again.
The other part is to accept that people are going to criticize what you’re doing, especially you. In fact, you are often your own worst critic.
This is the case for writing and it’s the case for everything else.
There’s no substitute for consistently doing the work.
And you’re not allowed to beat yourself up.
2 Minute Action
What’s something that you’ve been meaning to improve in your life?
- Exercise?
- Marketing your brand?
- Motivating your volunteers?
- Energizing your students in the morning?
Here are some things you can do right now in 2 minutes or less:
- Do burpees for 2 minutes straight. If you can’t, do 30 seconds on, 30 seconds off.
- Send out an email to past clients and ask them to write a testimonial for your brand.
- Pick a measurable outcome that volunteers can see. If they can see how well they’re doing, they are more likely to improve.
- Google “fun facilitation exercises” like “rock, paper, scissors, posse.” You have the whole internet at your fingertips.
Yes, Cheesy "Trust Falls" Help, But Not How You Think . . .
Have you ever done a "trust fall?"
It's the one where you close your eyes and fall backward.
The way it's supposed to work:
Your teammate catches you, even though you can't see them.
The way it works in business and life:
No one catches you. But you keep falling backward anyway.You keep falling backward until your teammates learn how to succeed.This is important, especially for entrepreneurs who are often wearing multiple hats in their work. By picking low-risk projects and letting our teams fail (without the fear of being fired), we empower them to take full responsibility for the outcomes.
The only trouble is that the first few times are not only difficult and scary, but we often get a little banged up.
This is normal.It's part of the "tax" we pay for passing on the baton so we can focus on other work.
2 Minute Action
Chris Ducker took action on this by creating what he calls his "3 Lists To Freedom" when he began outsourcing work from his business.
Create your 3 lists.
- 1st List: Things you don't like doing.
- 2nd List: Things you can't do.
- 3rd List: Things you shouldn't be doing.
These lists will help you organize and start delegating tasks to others.