When I first started blogging in 2007, my goal was to post something once a week. It sounded reasonable enough, and it wasn’t particularly hard to do. However, I didn’t plan ahead. If I blogged on Tuesday, I wouldn’t give the blog another thought until the following Tuesday when it was time to post again.

Eventually, it started to slip. Inevitably, I’d be due to blog on a day when I wasn’t on my game. Due to my habit of procrastinating until the last minute, I had left myself no margin for error. At first, it wasn’t a big deal. I’d just delay the blog for a day until I came up with something good to write. Then, a day became two, then three. Soon, I found two weeks elapsing between posts. Eventually, I realized that the longer I procrastinated my blog, the harder it was to get myself inspired again. The inevitable happened. I crashed and burned, and for over a year, I quit blogging altogether.

My mentality about blogging now is altogether different. My strategy is to schedule my posts way ahead. My goal for blogging is simple: to become a great writer. My motivation for going at it every day is simple: if I’m going to become a great writer in the amount of time I have left on Earth, I’d better get started.

How do you motivate yourself every day?