What do badgers have to do with blogging?

The first book I ever wrote when I first learned how to write was about badgers. It was a sort of user manual for anyone who had come across a badger, telling them facts about badgers, how to interact with them, and, crucially, how dangerous they are. 

Ok, calling it a book is quite a stretch! It was about 6 pages long, fully illustrated (albeit with the badger to human scale totally off), and written on scrap paper from my Dad’s office that I secured together with a hole punch and some string. I remember loving every minute of this, and was so proud of what I’d created. It was the moment when creative writing became part of who I am. 

After that, storytelling was a joy. It didn’t matter what I was writing about, I could sit and scribble for hours as characters came to life in my mind’s eye and I fished around earnestly in the lucky dip of interesting new words. 

Creative writing became journalling in my teenage years. Spilling my thoughts onto a page then hiding it away felt like confiding in a best friend. It helped me process all the highs and lows of being a teenager, and once again the words were flowing easily and without care of whether they sounded right or made sense. I was expressing myself, and it felt really really good.

But as I got older, creative writing took up much less time on the curriculum, and instead I found myself writing essays, coursework, and personal statements. By the time I got to university, I’d decided I was no longer a creative writer. I was a lover of words to be read, but not a wordsmith. I dabbled in writing now and again, but it felt forced. It was hard work. I was never in the right headspace, whereas before it had felt like my only headspace was writing. 

I left creative writing behind for years, jumping from job to job, not knowing which way to turn. Until I discovered blogging. 

I discovered blogging at about the same time that I bought my first property. I knew lots of people my age who were struggling to know where to start or how to even start saving for a home, but I knew it was possible because I’d done it! I decided to start journalling again, but this time it was called blogging. Instead of being tucked away in a notebook under my bed, these blogs would be online for the world to see. 

It turned out, I would have needed quite sophisticated SEO for the whole world to see the blogs, but it got me back into my creative headspace. I was a writer again, and I loved it. I wrote about MY experience MY way, and didn’t worry about whether it was structured correctly or if I was hitting all the SEO check points.  

This is why I teach business owners how to write amazing blogs to engage their ideal client. Blogging is something we all know we should do, but we struggle to get it done for all the reasons that I stopped writing stories years ago. We don’t have the time, the words feel forced and look unnatural on the page, life (and business) gets in the way.

But blogging doesn’t have to be forced or heap loads of pressure onto you to get it right. Blogging is just you talking to your audience the way you like to, because it’s only by doing this that you’ll attract YOUR people. 

Your people love what you have to say. They love how you think, your passions, and the results you deliver to them. They want to know your opinion on things, and they’re on board with it (even if it’s totally bonkers!)

So stop waiting for perfectionism. Stop telling yourself that you need to be in the right headspace, because whatever headspace you’re in, it’s perfect for writing exactly what you think, feel, and believe. Be yourself, dump those thoughts into the scary blank word document and get started - just like I did all those years ago when I decided I was an expert on badgers for the day. Your audience can’t wait to read it. 

If you're ready to uplevel your content creation and start generating leads every time you blog, I have a free guide that will get you started. Click here for your copy of Bag a Client with your Next Piece of Content.