The Power of Stretching Yourself

 When I decided that I was going to write a blog post for this website every day, most people thought it was dippy.  Truth be told, many still do.  But I decided to do it for a few reasons… 1.  I wanted to be unreasonable.  I felt like the most successful people I followed did things that most other people feel is unreasonable.  I actually talk about that here. 2.  I wanted to provide value.  I know most people will not be able to read these posts every day.  But when they want to read, or when they need a boost, I want to have new content. 3.  I wanted to see if I could do it.  I love goals that stretch me.  And from a content perspective, creating something new every day excited me! These were the reasons I started.  But I have discovered some interesting truths along the way.  Here are the reasons I am still excited to keep going. 1.  It’s working.  From an audience perspective, the traffic continues to grow.  Content marketing is a long term game.   2.  I want to see if I can maintain it.  At this point, I have posted well over 100 days in a row.  That’s exciting!  Will I break the streak?  I might.  But not today. 3.  I keep coming up with new ideas.  That’s one of the big concerns, right?  You will run out of ideas.  But the opposite has been true for me.  Jeff Haden talked to me about this.  When you are doing it every day, your brain is constantly looking for things to write about.  When you are doing it once a week…not so much.  So though there are days when I struggle to come up with something, it’s usually no more than when I was writing twice a month. 4.  I feel like I am getting better.   The reality is, if you want to be great at nearly anything, you need to put in the work.  It’s what Malcom Gladwell called the 10,000 hours rule.  So no matter whether you want to get better at sales, content, fitness, or cooking, the secret is…there is no secret.  You need to keep putting in the work.  You need to keep it up day after day.  You need to keep going after other people stop. That’s the secret.   The great news is, it’s completely in your control.  The better news is, it’s probably not as hard as you think…if you just start…and keep going. Make sure you never miss an update!  It’s time to sign up for our VIP newsletter!  Why?  Simple.  We are posting a lot of content.  Once a week we send you an email to recap it all in one place.  Sign up here.