Why Perfectionism Is Killing Your Blogging and What to Do About It
I received an email from one of my readers today.
In it, he told me that his biggest problem with blogging is perfectionism, and went on to say that he has drafts of several articles written, and that he kept tweaking them, trying to get them perfect.
As a recovering perfectionist myself, I can relate to his struggle, as I used to have this very same problem myself, in many areas of life, including blogging.
One way to look at perfectionism in blogging and article writing is that the writing you do will never help anyone, including yourself, if you don't publish it.
Actually, it may help you to gain clarity regarding your life, business, or other matters regardless of whether or not it's published, but it won't help drive traffic to your site or provide other benefits to you and your business until you publish it.
Definitely get your blog posts out there, even if they aren't perfect.
Now by that, I don't mean to say that you should leave in obvious mistakes such as typos.
Correct those, of course, but let go of perfectionism when it comes to trying to find the perfect word, or trying to write a masterpiece that can't be improved on in any way.
One thing you might want to do is give yourself goals and time limits.
For example, set a time limit of spending only "x" amount of time on a blog post.
The maximum amount of time I would spend on an article is 2 hours, unless it was something really in depth.
In most cases, I spend a lot less than 2 hours on a blog post.
We all have different abilities when it comes to our writing and typing speed, so you have to determine yourself the maximum amount of time you'll spend on a blog post.
I find that literally setting a timer, and trying to complete an article before the timer goes off helps me to get down to business and write, without spending an excessive amount of time on a single blog post.
I also find it helpful to set goals regarding publishing frequency, and stick to it, no matter what.
This pushes me forward with publishing what I write, and though I always try to write good content, keeping up with my publishing goals keeps perfectionism at bay out of necessity.
Another thing to keep in mind is that the more you write, the better you'll get.
So write, publish, write, publish and keep on doing that and you'll find that your writing will improve and you'll also learn that content doesn't have to be perfect in order to be effective.
In it, he told me that his biggest problem with blogging is perfectionism, and went on to say that he has drafts of several articles written, and that he kept tweaking them, trying to get them perfect.
As a recovering perfectionist myself, I can relate to his struggle, as I used to have this very same problem myself, in many areas of life, including blogging.
One way to look at perfectionism in blogging and article writing is that the writing you do will never help anyone, including yourself, if you don't publish it.
Actually, it may help you to gain clarity regarding your life, business, or other matters regardless of whether or not it's published, but it won't help drive traffic to your site or provide other benefits to you and your business until you publish it.
Definitely get your blog posts out there, even if they aren't perfect.
Now by that, I don't mean to say that you should leave in obvious mistakes such as typos.
Correct those, of course, but let go of perfectionism when it comes to trying to find the perfect word, or trying to write a masterpiece that can't be improved on in any way.
One thing you might want to do is give yourself goals and time limits.
For example, set a time limit of spending only "x" amount of time on a blog post.
The maximum amount of time I would spend on an article is 2 hours, unless it was something really in depth.
In most cases, I spend a lot less than 2 hours on a blog post.
We all have different abilities when it comes to our writing and typing speed, so you have to determine yourself the maximum amount of time you'll spend on a blog post.
I find that literally setting a timer, and trying to complete an article before the timer goes off helps me to get down to business and write, without spending an excessive amount of time on a single blog post.
I also find it helpful to set goals regarding publishing frequency, and stick to it, no matter what.
This pushes me forward with publishing what I write, and though I always try to write good content, keeping up with my publishing goals keeps perfectionism at bay out of necessity.
Another thing to keep in mind is that the more you write, the better you'll get.
So write, publish, write, publish and keep on doing that and you'll find that your writing will improve and you'll also learn that content doesn't have to be perfect in order to be effective.
