There will be days when you don’t care about your stupid blog. There will be days when you don’t care about lifting a finger to do anything “efficient” or “productive.” There will be days when Twitter and Facebook look like a bunch of chattering monkeys and you couldn’t care less. There will be days you can’t really be bothered to answer your email, even if it’s “important.”
Even thinking about what would happen if a project is late or thinking about how lucky you are to do this for a living or even looking at your own children fails to motivate you, sometimes.
The way that most people act, you would think they never feel this way. Everything is FINE, they say through a fake emoticon grin. And you end up thinking you’re the only person who doesn’t care today. And maybe that means there’s something wrong with you. Maybe you’re not cut out for this entrepreneur stuff.
Well, that’s bullshit.
I don’t care who you are: everyone has days like that. Everyone has days when they don’t care. And you know what? It’s OK. Really, it is. Think about the absurdity of being “up” 100% of the time. Nobody can do that. Human beings don’t work that way. We need periods of rest and recovery in between periods of intense action. In fact, you might be feeling a bit down because you just need some sleep.
So, what do you do when this happens?
Well, I can’t tell you what’s true for you, but I can tell you what’s true for me and you can use that as a place to start if you like. But here’s something to think about: people do not want to hear you complain. If you need encouragement or help, ask for it. Your friends will surprise you. But complaining and whining turns people off, and it doesn’t make you feel any better, either.
If you’re committed to pumping out a post every day and suddenly today you don’t feel like it, you still have some choices:
- Suck it up and do it, anyway.
- Pull a spare post out of draft and publish it (this is exactly why you should have spare posts written and ready to go).
- Use one of my ways to crank out a post in 10 minutes or less.
You could do nothing. You could skip it, today. The sky will not fall.
But if you’ve promised your readers a post every day and then suddenly one day there isn’t a post, what do you think that’s going to do to their trust in you? It’s going to chip away at it. One small transgression opens the door to more, and you don’t want to start down that slippery slope.
It’s OK to have days when you don’t care, that’s human. But it’s not OK to break a promise if you’re a professional. This is the difference between professionals and amateurs. Professionals get the job done no matter what. On the days when you do care, don’t just write one post, write two, and keep one as a spare for the odd day when when you don’t care and simply cannot care. It’s OK to not care some days, but it’s not OK to let people down.
Publish your post and then walk away from your computer. Take a nap, read a book, veg out on some TV, whatever. That ebook you’re working on will still be there tomorrow. That sales letter you were writing will still be there tomorrow. Whatever.
Tomorrow is another day.