“Don’t waste time waiting for inspiration. Begin, and inspiration will find you.” H. Jackson Brown Jr.
“Writing about a writer’s block is better than not writing at all” Charles Bukowski
I enjoy writing, and my blog provides an opportunity to hone my skills and get feedback from a wider audience.
It is a labor of love.
I don’t get paid for it and anyone who is interested can subscribe for free. I have posted a minimum of twice a month for years, and have covered topics ranging from project management to cancel culture. The topics seem to pick themselves based on whatever I am observing in my personal or professional world, and the words flowed easily as I began to write.
Several months ago, I hit a metaphorical wall. The topics became more difficult to pick, and I had problem choosing the right words to convey my thoughts. I had no passion and the labor of love became just labor.
I decided to take a break from writing the blog.
I thought a lot about what I could add to the conversation. I am passionate about politics, but I realized that any political position I took would alienate ½ of my readers. That isn’t good for my personal brand! Candidly, politics has already secreted itself into so many inappropriate places that I don’t want to contribute to that.
I looked at what was happening with my employer. We are in the midst of a significant reorganization, and that is occurring at the exact same time as unprecedented attrition. I suspect observing and participating in those efforts will be a constant source of content.
I attained my Disciplined Agile Scrum Master (DASM)®certification, and that changed my perspective on the concepts of Disciplined Agile and the Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe)®. In addition to that, I prepped and taught several different PMI® certification courses, and that provided great insight into the theoretical underpinnings of several disciplines. I’ll be sharing those in future posts.
My wife and I entered a new phase with our patented invention, the SeaClutch®. We shifted focus from direct retail sales to wholesale distribution, and that process had a lot of lessons I can share.
With a variety of topics I was passionate about and a renewed focus, I sat down to write this blog.
And I couldn’t!
I would sit in front of my computer intending to write, but every time I found something else to do. The TV would distract me. I would check my email. I would look for news on the internet. I would get up and walk around.
Anything but write.
I had lost the habit of writing, and like any good habit I needed structure to get back on track.
So, I imposed structure! I picked a specific time every day and made myself write. Even if it was just a sentence, I wrote something. After a week of "forced" writing, I began to look forward to sitting down and sharing my thoughts. I had regained the good habit of writing daily and the writers block was gone.
I apologize to my subscribers, but I promise more content in the future.
Coda
Is it just me, but are there a lot of unimpressive people running things? What is even more fascinating, there appears to no consequences for failure. How did this happen? How did actual performance, as opposed to occupying a position, become unimportant? Something to explore in more detail in the future.