Focus and Discipline

I used to be a prolific writer. I had several sites I was involved in writing for, along with guest posts, blogging carnivals, and other activities. I averaged 1-4 posts a week for nearly 2 years. I’m not sure when it all stopped, but it did all stop, and quite abruptly. Maybe it was the birth of my son, maybe I just got really busy with work that month, maybe I just wasn’t leveraging it into a paying gig, or maybe I went to redesign my site and it took longer than I had anticipated. In any case, the end result was that I got out of the practice of blogging and was never quite able to restart myself on that path again.

Enter Adventures in Manifesting. This week, part of my assignment is to teach myself discipline by meditating every morning for 30 days straight. (This is not the exact assignment, just my take on this particular part of it.) The problem with this assignment is trying to do something for a month without seeing the personal benefit of it. I mean, if you told me to have a glass of wine every night for 30 nights, I’d be all on it. Eat a salad every day for a month? Sure thing. But meditate? I don’t really like meditating nor get anything out of it, so it’s sometimes difficult for me to make it through a single session even if I try really hard. I just don’t think meditation is the best task for me, as I would have to overcome both my disinterest/dislike in the activity and my lack of discipline in forming a new habit.

I’m a goal-oriented person. I joined this program to help me establish and reach my goals, so it makes more sense to me to pick something to do for a month that involves my goals for 2011. I’ve decided to go through the entire program 31 Days to Build a Better Blog by problogger Darren Rowse, and do every single task in the program. This will be my discipline goal from now until February 28th. I’m allowing a few days extra beyond the 31 for mishaps, as I do have a family and other responsibilities — I want to be both ambitious and realistic on this project! I will update on this site with my progress, in case you’re curious to know how it turns out.

By the end of this period, my minimum goal is to double my current level of subscribers and traffic on the Small Business Essentials site. I have already redesigned it and added subscription capabilities, which puts me ahead of the game for my goals. Additionally, I will have established a routine for writing and re-taught myself writing discipline. As an added bonus, I am reading an entire e-book — and although it is only 94 pages, the extra work involved in completing all the tasks qualifies me to check off one of the 3 books (minimum) that I need to read this year.

So who is with me?