Staying motivated with streaks

I’m having one of those weeks where I zero motivation to sit down and write a
blog post. Spent part of the week in Austin with the work fam. Haven’t even
unpacked yet. Still getting back into the swing of being at home. In the middle
of a major redesign of SceneKids which I don’t want to detract from. Got two
business ideas I’m itching to sink my teeth into. Barely even started my taxes.
Starting to feel like the ROI from blogging doesn’t justify spending any time
on it. Just one of those weeks I suppose. Fortunately I have one thing going
for me. I am on one helluva blogging streak.

I started to blog regularly in February 2013. At first I was blogging every
couple of days. In April 2013 I caught up on getting a lot of things out of my
head and switched to blogging once a week. Rarely would I blog more than once a
week for fear of burn out. I rode out the rest of the year and at the end of
2013 I was on a 45 week blogging streak.

Having a streak felt good. To break the streak would mean I would have to start
from zero and have to blog another 45 weeks to catch up. At this point I
decided to challenge myself to blogging weekly for an entire year. I stuck with
it through what ended up being a turbulent year personally. My 45 week streak
was just 2 weeks shy of 100 when 2014 came to an end.

Blogging for nearly 100 weeks straight felt really fucking good. I’ve found
that most people give up on their blogging regimen within a few weeks. They
burn out by trying to blog more than once a week. Some people burn faster by
trying to blog every day. I stuck with once a week and was able to keep the
streak alive for well over a year!

I don’t necessarily have a following on my blog aside for my VPS comparison
posts. Fortunately it’s never been about that. I blog to be creative. I blog to
become a better writer. I blog because I have to keep the streak alive. This
week marks the 114th week that I’ve blogged.

Feeling unmotivated to write today I decided to tally it all up. Seeing the
total reminded me once again that if I didn’t find the motivation that I would
have to start from zero. Starting from zero is daunting. Breaking the streak
could easily mean that I never start another streak. I have to keep going.

I made the mistake of not setting a 2015 goal for my blog. As I write this post
I am pondering what a good 2015 goal would be. Having streaks ends up creating
a self-evident goal. Every week I continue to blog I am breaking a record.
Every week ends up being a victory. The goal is to not break the streak.

Josh Sherman - The Man, The Myth, The Avatar

About Josh

Husband. Father. Pug dad. Musician. Founder of Holiday API, Head of Engineering and Emoji Specialist at Mailshake, and author of the best damn Lorem Ipsum Library for PHP.


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