Mike Ferguson's Business Blog Archive

Mike Ferguson, Fresh Ground Consulting

We decided last week here at FGC that to get a blog up and running we really needed to blog daily. And so each day I wrote a blog, posting the next morning…until yesterday.

Yesterday I hit a little wall and I realized that I will need to learn to balance my writing energy. I’ve been moping about it for about 24 hours. So I did what I often do when I’m stuck or in a funk. I treated myself like a client.

I asked myself what I would do for me if I were my consulting client. After untwisting my tongue, this is what I came up with:

First is what I’m doing right now, being honest. For blogging to work for me I have to write about things that mean something to me and I absolutely cannot try and fake anything. That would be a disaster. But the only management or leadership topic that has been on my mind the last 24 hours is feeling like I could not write and my inability to manage my own feelings about writing another blog. So, when you name the bogyman, define the problem, rather than allowing ambiguous worry to fester, the problem begins to shrink to its proper, manageable, proportion.

Second, I realized one of the reasons I was moping was because I had made a commitment to blog daily, and I was on my way to breaking that commitment. I learned from David Allen that I have three choices when it comes to commitments: 1) never make the commitment to begin with, 2) break the commitment, or 3) renegotiate the commitment. The one thing I cannot do is pretend like the commitment was never made. Since this commitment was largely one made to myself, I renegotiated.

“Look, Mike, I know I committed to a daily blog, and I still believe that is the right strategy. As the process becomes routine and I get my ‘calluses,’ I really don’t think it will be a problem. At the same time, I think I need a little flexibility at the beginning, maybe to occasionally send out a blog later in the day, or even skip a day if I need to focus on other priorities.”

“Mike, that’s not a problem at all. I’m glad you felt like you could come to me and talk about it. I agree, a daily blog is the right strategy, but that doesn’t mean you have to write 500 or 1000 words every time. Not only do you need to mix up the word count, but also the type of topics you choose. Don’t forget, we agreed that some days you would simply talk about a current project. As usual, you’re putting all kinds of unnecessary pressure on yourself.”

“I am an old man and have known a great many troubles, but most of them never happened.”
-Mark Twain

www.freshgroundconsulting.com