This happened.
Last year, my mastermind group made a commitment to each other that we would blog each day in August.
Why? Was it for the SEO? For the traffic? For the achievement? Nope, alas nothing that planned, purely because we had been lazy sods all summer and let it slide. Our blogging efforts were shocking. Really awful. No oomph or excitement about it all. We wanted to get back into the swing-a-ling.
Away we went, happily clicking and tapping on our keyboards, then we started talking about our little challenge, before we knew it we had other solo business owners joining us (50, mainly therapists): completely unplanned, no big deal, fanfare or big launch thing. With some of them using the challenge to start their own blog or get serious about the one they already had, and others just wanting to get in the flow.
We then said, ‘Let’s put on a beginners course for new-ish bloggers, peeps like us with people helpery businesses, so we did. We had been wanting to work together on a business-type project together, and this seemed like the ideal and natural thing if going by all the feedback, questions and ‘problems’ from the unexpected little community that had popped up.
We delivered webinars, made videos, worksheets, instructions and how to’s, created a forum, a secret cloak and dagger Facebook group, sent daily emails, ran Google+ Hangouts, and all the other bits ‘n’ bobs that go into making an online course. We got it all up and running in a week. Which is funny considering it took me two years to launch a new website.
Then we thought, we probably need to get a website and, erm, well, a blog since it’s a blogging course. So we did that. Then we thought do we need other social media accounts (apart from our own), so we created them too.
Everything upside down, topsy turvy and back to front.
Here’s my thinking on this: in business world (life?) we know that planning is an excellent thing to fall in love with but sometimes I think you just have to fall in love with the intention, decide on how you want to people to feel at the end (or yourself), then jump right fecking in.
Learn, apply and make it all happen as you’re doing it, and that includes admitting errors and rectifying mistakes.
I honestly believe that spontaneous and unplanned course was one of the best things that happened last year in my business, for so many reasons. I remember other events and courses that have worked exactly the same way in the past.
I’d love your thoughts on this, but I believe that it’s so easy to get caught up in the ‘how’, that we can talk ourselves out of doing what we know we are more than capable of. It was also where I learned, really learned, that wanting to create perfection was getting in my own way … big time. There was no time for perfectly perfect, the course had to happen, people were already in their seats.
Yes, there was loads we would have done differently, that’s true. Yes, it was stressful at times. No, I wouldn’t recommend I do everything this way. It just felt right. We did say to people joining the online class at the start, ‘please come but there will be hiccups and whoopsies, but if you can hack that so can we’. And still, they came. We weren’t 100% ready, but we were perfectly ready to start. And yes, we made errors. Having to admit them? A priceless education in being human.
But then to receive emails that people had been offered business, contracts, able to work with the people they really love to work with because of their blog a few months later. That was amazing. And I feel really honoured to have been a little part of it.
Why am I telling you all this?
1. For you to ask yourself, ‘where are am I getting in my own way?’ Where are you worrying too much about the how? Is there a little bit of perfection in there? What would happen if you let us in and showed us what you were creating?
2. We are having another blogging challenge (on the new website) and (if you fit the criteria) we would love for you to join us. Now closed.
3. Anne Frank said, ‘How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.’ And look, she still is.
What are your thoughts? Do we worry too much about the how? Feel free to leave a comment, let’s discuss.
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