Inspired by the Imp & Skizz Podcast.
I have been trying to start a blog for many years. A few of the blogs were up and running but the category of choice quickly had me give up. Now for the last 3 years I have been writing posts for this website and never actually uploading them.
Why?
My personal excuses included, the subjects weren’t interesting enough for public readers, I didn’t have enough time to post weekly, I already missed a week so I’ve failed, my expectations were too high, and I rambled way more than I should.
So let’s unpack each of these, both for my blogging experience and for situations you may encounter in your life.
Debunking Excuses
1. Imposter Syndrome
If you haven’t heard of imposter syndrome before, it is a type of self-doubt that causes people to believe they are not good enough or experienced enough for whatever area they are feeling it in. This could be seen as a parent, or in your newest position at a job, or in my case as a writer.
I have been wanting to be a fully paid author for many years. In fact, one of my favorite childhood photos of myself was me laying on my belly with a pen and notebook. I would draw scribbles on each line and then tell whoever in my family would listen, a story. In school, I would write 12 page stories for the required 2 pages, and 40 page scripts for the casually social studies project. But it wasn’t until after high school that I truly knew that if I work hard enough, I could make this my full-time career. I sell D&D campaigns (guided stories for role-playing games) and have three of my own stories mapped out for publication eventually.
I then decided that I need to take every English class in college to be qualified… even though I had already been selling many stories and gaining 5 star reviews.
No matter my accomplishments in the subject so far, I’ve refused to believe I’m good enough.
The other thing about this excuse is that we compare our Day 1s to other people’s Day 100s. I shouldn’t compare my writing capabilities to a well established author like Branden Sanderson who has published over 50 books! If you are trying to start a workout journey and find yourself comparing your 10lb PR (Personal Record) to a body builder’s 100lb you are bound to get discouraged. Comparison is the thief of all joy. Look at the first videos of your favorite Youtuber. Their quality is worse than that of their new videos, maybe their editing is more choppy and their voice is less confident. Nonetheless they still have success now because they continued to grow their skills. Waiting until you are perfect will mean you never start. Allow yourself to make mistakes now to flourish in your future.
2. Not Enough Time
Sure okay. You work a 9-5 job, you have kids to feed and deal with, you just genuinely have no time. But don’t you?
If we really dissect our day, how long did you spend scrolling on social media, or binge-watching a TV show? I am not saying never let yourself relax, but when you take the time to truly evaluate how you use your time, the fact of the matter is you probably aren’t making the time to fit your goals into your day.
As the hosts of the Imp and Skizz podcast say, you may just realize that you don’t actually want to reach your goal as much as you say you do. If Hollywood came to you and said, “We want you to star in our next movie but you need to lose 20 pounds before we start filming in 3 months.” would you not do everything in your power to reach said goal? Wake up a little earlier, eat healthier, and put your all into your workouts. Same goes for whatever other goals. If I had Brennen Lee Mulligan ask me to write the next campaign for him and his team to use for their next series nothing would stop me. I would work a little faster in my college, stay up a little later, and write hundreds of drafts to perfect the storyline.
So more than asking “Do I have enough time,” the real question is “How bad do I actually want this?” Evaluating my priorities and my circumstances had me realize that I truly want this career as a writer to sustain me full time. This means that I need to make other sacrifices in my life to make this dream a reality. I am working a very part-time job to maintain my bills, but I found productivity apps to help me work through my college as efficiently as possible to allow time to start writing here, and selling campaigns again.
Using this blog will both allow me to grow my skills but also hopefully an audience. Whether the audience takes two months or two years to start building, I must not give up and must make the time to write. Two posts a month may not be favorable to the 4+ seen by other bloggers, but its faster progress than 0 per month.
3. Failing at my New Routine
How often have you given up on new year’s resolutions after just one month, or sooner? How many times did you say “I want to change starting Monday?” “I’ll try again Monday.” Constantly we constitute one falter from our goal as complete failure rather than partial setback. If your goal was to workout 3 times a week, but missed Wednesday because you were sick, why didn’t you go Friday? Possibly because gaining momentum is hard but maintaining it is easy. When you stop rowing a kayak or canoe, you noticeably lose momentum, but also it can be much harder to get back into motion. However, failure should never be determined by mishap but by complete stop. As a martial artist, I have faced many terrifying obstacles including breaking boards and bricks.
The first time I broke a brick, I missed my first attempt. I overshot and it did not break. But I shook off the pain, took a deep breath, tried again (with much more urgency as it was standing in the way of achieving my black belt) and broke the brick! If I stopped and sat down I would have failed at breaking the brick. But so long as I didn’t give up, my chance wasn’t over. Same with anything you do. My first post was supposed to come out on the first Monday of January 2025. It’s now partially into February. Missing that day was a big setback – I already “failed” at starting my blog. It wasn’t until I shifted my view back into not letting the setbacks win that I sat down to write this post.
In martial arts, my instructors knew how to keep me fired up. “You aren’t going to let the board win are you?” “You aren’t going to lose to an obstacle are you?” It’s common to feel like some external force is the reason you cannot do something. It’s detrimental to allow that ideology to rule your decisions.
Often I use this internal competition to my advantage now. I’m not going to let the obstacles beat me. If you miss your workout today, go again tomorrow. If you miss writing 5000 words today, just make sure you do it tomorrow.
Habits aren’t formed out of ideation. They require discipline.
4. High Expectations / Large Goals
Personally, I’ve always had the opinion that “setting your expectations low so you don’t get disappointed” is depressing. However, the premise of that statement can be beneficial with discretion. It’s better to set your end goals high but provide bite sized steps to get there.
Expectations should be set to match your current skill set rather than your end goal. If you have never done a pushup before, doing 20 in a row is unachievable. Aim for 3 sets of 5 with breaks in between. If you have never edited a video before, don’t expect to have movie level transitions day one. Play around with the settings of your editing software and focus on not cutting a clip mid-sentence. The only thing that should be your determining factor for a successful launch is whether or not you tried your best. If you rush through and ignore major problems, you are letting yourself down in that moment.
Having an end goal should also be fluid. Setting a goal of 1 million followers will only be fulfilling once you’ve reached it. Not before, or after. My definition of success should be consistent with my values. My “end” goal for this blog is to consistently talk about topics that bring me joy and benefit others. Secondarily I want to have a growing audience that interacts with my posts. Both of these goals align with my values but will not be fully obtained at any one time.
I will feel fulfilled every time I write about a topic that brings me joy, every time I post consistently, and every time my audience grows.
Secondarily I am at peace knowing that success is like climbing a ladder. Each little goal is a rung on the ladder. The first set of goals need to be tiny! Creating this website, writing my first post, and hitting publish are among the first three rungs of the ladder. The next goal is to publish again in exactly two weeks. Rung 5 is to promote the blog. Until I habitually write twice per month, writing one more post will be a rung on the ladder to reach.
I Challenge You
The Imp and Skizz podcast never fails to inspire me! Their second episode was all about this idea. Hounding the point that if you really want to reach your goal you need to shift your priorities. Allowing these excuses to rule your life will never go away on their own. It is up to you to make these changes!
If anyone reads this, I will use the same prompt Skizz does now. You have 72 hours to do anything in progress (including shifting priorities) of the goal you have been striving for.
If you would like more encouragement here is the episode of their podcast:
