Yesterday marked 31 days of writing a post here every day. Somebody asked me whether I thought I had learnt anything from writing every day.
I think it has led to me becoming more disciplined and I am now getting better results. We all write every day, but much of it doesn’t develop discipline. Comments on social media, engaging in a text chat or sending an email or two are not really disciplined writing.
However the discipline of writing a blog post every day is I believe very valuable. Discipline seems to be something that is underrated today. Yet the difference between success and failure is often how disciplined you are.
Yesterday I listened to a podcast with James Altucher. He was interviewing Jim Kwik, the learning expert. Jim was telling a story of how he had been giving Stan Lee, the former chairman of Marvel comics, a lift.
They were as I suspect one probably does when driving in a car with a man like Stan discussing Superheroes. Specifically who there favourites were. Stan chose Iron Man. Jim’s was Spiderman. On learning of Jim’s preference for Spiderman Stan quoted from Spiderman’s Uncle Ben:
“With great power comes great responsibility.”
Jim responded that with great responsibility comes great power. And this struck me as being a pretty useful statement. If you want to take responsibility you have to be disciplined.
Now we all know people who take on a little responsibility and that leads them to become power hungry. That though isn’t what I mean. If you are taking responsibility for the power, then you aren’t being responsible at all.
As you start taking responsibility for something, you develop the discipline. That discipline gives you the power to do incredible things.
In March 2013 I went skiing. At the time I was a chain smoker, puffing my way through some 60 cigarettes a day. I was also morbidly obese. Yet I thought of myself as just being a little overweight. It so happened that I had a wake up call when I found myself out of breath halfway down a slope.
That combined with something my brother said was the catalyst for me to get back into shape. It still took me 6 months before I started to do something about it. Now getting on for 3 years later I find myself in a very different position.
I no longer smoke, I exercise every day of the week and I am no longer morbidly obese. I took responsibility for my health. That has led to me becoming much more disciplined. I now exercise every day, am aware of what I eat and haven’t been near a cigarette since October 2013. That has led to me becoming a much better person. And hopefully without being one of those former fat people/ex smokers who get boring about it.
So that takes me back to the discipline of writing a blog post every day. I believe that it is invaluable. It helps to improve my writing and makes me take responsibility in other areas of my life. I’m rejuvenating my business, and much more enthusiastic about the future.
I think that writing makes me more excited and enthusiastic every day, when I start work. Except much of the time it doesn’t feel like work at all. It is something I thoroughly enjoy doing and that makes me feel like I’m the luckiest people in the world.
So for me the practice of daily blogging is I think hugely beneficial. Partly because I feel that daily practice helps my writing improve. And partly because it helps me clarify some ideas. But perhaps most importantly because the discipline of writing it focuses me on the rest of my day’s work.
So I am intending to carry on writing a post every day. But they won’t all be on this blog. I am going to start writing posts on some of the other websites I run, many of which I have been quietly revamping.
I will though still write at least one post a week on this site. But for me this blog is a bit of an egotistical exercise. And it strikes me that I need to be using my blogging more for the benefit of my business. My ego can do perfectly well without it!
Many thanks for reading. I would love to hear your comments below.
Time writing: 20 minutes
Time from start to finish: 55 minutes
Time editing: 22 minutes
How happy with result: 5
