I’ve written a blog post every day for the last 60 Days.
It feels great to be able to say that and to have a body of work you can stamp your name on!(Geeez Josh you’re such a bragger)
Now, I’m not saying they are the best posts in the world — in fact, most them are probably first draft ideas — but I can say each one was the best I could give in that moment. Blogging captures your thoughts and ideas in a moment in time. And the act itself exercises my blogging and writing muscles.
Each day I leave myself open to ideas — from conversations, books, articles, observations — and after coming home from work around 9 or 10 I sit down and write.
At the beginning, the idea of doing something daily sounded great (on paper) but impossible to do. How can I do this with a fulltime job? And the second job after that one?
But then I wrote and shipped a post one day. Then the next day I did another. And the same the next day. I kept going and going. There are moments I want to quit. Moments I think, ‘I just want to go to bed’. I stumbled upon the answer to the questions above by writing every day:
It’s not about how can I do this, it’s about will I do this.
Will I make the time to do what’s important to me, or not? Yes or No.
The chore of writing every day has now become my fuel and momentum to try new things and push my limits on what is possible.
I highly recommend starting your own daily habit. It will push your capabilities and drive you to the life of your dreams.
This wouldn’t be a blog post if it didn’t have a listicle somewhere.. so here are 9 Things I’ve learned from Blogging for 60 Days.
3 Lessons I’ve Learned
1. Daily Habits are essential: If you want to be something, you’ve got to do it. Consistency is one of the hardest parts of change. It’s easy to fall off the bandwagon without realizing it. One day you’re riding along, and the next you’re in on the ground wondering what happened. If you want to create change in your life, daily habits will get you there.
2. Double Down: Writing is my anchor. When things in my life are not good, writing is what keeps me calm and enables me to see clearly. The same is true for what’s important to you. Don’t drop what’s important to you when you are in troubling times. Double Down. Increase the time you spend on your passions — even when it feels like you don’t have any time for them. The more you do, the more clarity about your life.
3. Finding your voice comes through process. Rarely do you see someone starting out knowing their voice. Discovering who you are and what you value is a life long process. In the habit of working on your craft, you will find your voice.
3 Things I’ve noticed
1. Creativity is Progress: Creating is a process in which to self-reflect on who you want to be and the life you want to live. Never forget: No matter how hard they try, your creativity is yours. It’s not something that is taken from you.
2. Repetition is good: It’s okay to rehash ideas on different posts. It’s a sign that you are thinking about a question/problem from different angles. If you binge read some of my recent posts, they might sound the same, but really I’m thinking and feeling my way through alternative solutions I can test for problems I’m facing.
3. Masters are beginners who have been at it for a continuous amount of time. We can’t all be savants, but we can become masters at what we do. A master is someone who has doubled down and put in the daily practice of their craft. Their skills and instincts are hard-won traits of intentionally doing something for a long time. Mastery is something anyone with the right amount of perseverance and deliberate practice can achieve.
3 Things I need to work on
1. Batching: I want to continue writing every day, but not necessarily on the post I’m shipping that day. I want to create a large gap between an idea on a page and publishing. That way I have more time to stew on the idea and cross-reference other peoples ideas with my own. Batching will also give me the time and energy to be able to write for other areas of the Renaissance Life, such as newsletters and books.
2. Connecting: So far I’ve only been writing and publishing. I wanted to get down the craft of daily blogging first. Now I want to focus on how I can be better about connecting my ideas to a community who might enjoy them.
3. Storytelling: My posts have been good, but I want to make them better and better. I need to find ways I can incorporate more story and personal experience within as touching points and ways to reflect on ideas. I also want to incorporate different forms of sharing my ideas. I’m going to explore different formats like art, and audio as companions to make the posts more fun and insightful.
Pour one out for the last 60 days,
Here’s to 60 more!
Stay BOLD, Keep Pursuing,
— Josh Waggoner
