What did Monday Night Football teach me about passion and writing?

I’m not a writer, I never enjoyed writing. I struggle with finding the right words to put down on paper and I struggle with the mindset that I have to come up with the best content or most eloquent words otherwise it won’t be good enough and everyone will think it’s “stupid”.

While watching Monday Night Football I found myself on Twitter (@PrestigeBBQOven). I have a whopping 191 followers and to tell you the truth, I have zero interaction with them. Frankly, I struggle with whether or not I should shut my account down because it feels like a huge waste of my time. For whatever reason, I decided to tweet my reactions during the game and didn’t care if I was tweeting to myself or if anybody responded. I followed hashtags and replied to others questions or comments even if I didn’t get a response back. I simply typed the words and hit the send button not caring if what I typed sounded dumb or stupid. I was excited about the game; my team was coming from behind. There was buzz in the room. My wife and I were jumping up and down screaming at the TV. I found it easy and effortless to find the words to tweet and was tweeting a lot.

In the end, my team won – they came from behind and made football history “Yah team!” What struck me was I realized I had the passionate emotion for my team and the game and it was easy and effortless for me to write what I was passionate about (even if it was 140 characters or less). I related this to my business and recalled when I was in the start-up phase I would often daydream about what my business would be like. I would go thru scenarios in my head where I would talk about my company and my services; I was proud, excited and passionate. I couldn’t wait to tell everyone about my service and see the reaction I got from them. Now that I am up and running the reality of running a business has brought me down out of the clouds and I’m spending every waking minute on some aspect of the business. As a new entreprenuer you don’t realize all that you have to do and how hard it is to keep up with everything – it can be tiring at times.

What did I learn about myself and writing from Monday Night Football?

If I’m excited and passionate about my business it is a lot easier to write than I’m making it out to be. I think the reality of business life has stalled my excitement a bit but I am still passionate about what I do. I need to quite thinking of writing a blog as a scarry thing or a chore, something that I have to do – “Uugh! ANOTHER thing to put on my list!” or “I’ll get to it at some point” or whatever excuse I can come up with.

I have an incredible opportunity to present content about a service that not too many people know much about or even know exists. I have the opportunity to create a new industry and define what it is and what the customer can expect from it. Content should be boundess for me – IF, I only put it on paper!

Your turn

Are you still as passionate about your business as you were during the start-up phase? When the reality of running a business gets you down, what do you do to get the passion and excitment back? Does writing a blog come easy to you or do you struggle with it like I do?