Saturday, September 6, 2014

The Excellence Pursuit

I suppose the next time I commit to doing something daily, like blogging, I should consider a week when I'm home more than just to sleep. That being said, I did spend a considerable amount of time the past two days thinking about writing and while I didn't post, I did write. You'll hopefully see it someday but I can't share it just yet.

The challenge I've found, especially with trying to blog daily, is I am somewhat of a perfectionist. I have learned over the years that 80% is pretty good and if we can just get that far, then we can learn the rest as we go. Yet when it comes to writing, I am never happy with a post until I've pored over it for hours and feel I'd be proud to see it in print somewhere. In my mind, this was the pursuit of excellence. Or was it perfection? Is this what Godin speaks of as a downfall to producing art?

If I never post half of what I write because I don't believe it's 'good enough' or 'perfect enough', will I not improve at a slower rate than if I focus just on writing and sharing? After all, a good writer needs to be able to push something out fast do they not? I've never communicated full-time for a living but the journalists, bloggers and communications professionals I know are always following a story and striving to be first out the gate. No one wants to write about yesterday's news.

Blogging is somewhat this way although I tend to usually write about topics which may be ever-evolving, but rarely time-sensitive. That blogging daily would force me to come up first with something to write about, and then to accept it doesn't have to be perfect to be worth publishing is what the true value of this activity is about. Excellence is about continual improvement, trying and trying again, and always striving to be better next time.

After my first blog post, I got all sorts of recommendations for future Seth Godin and communications reading. One included Seth's blog and after scanning it briefly this morning, I think I am further understanding this concept. Some days, his blog posts are no more than an observation stated in a phrase or sentence. Is that not what I do on Twitter? Not everything fits in 140 characters though and maybe you don't have to write 500 words to have a worthy post?

Hmmm suddenly 4 more days of blogging seems quite reasonable.

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