What’s holding you back from blogging?

Darryl Cross, Vice President, Performance Development, LexisNexis (@darrylcross), gave a great talk on “Performance: Art, Science, or Grit” at the recent MA Los Angeles program .

He said it’s often one of three things that hold us back. Fear, reservations, or complacency. Darryl may have been talking about lawyers and marketing or marketing professionals themselves, but I was thinking lawyers and blogging.

Fear

Most lawyers are afraid to blog. What will I blog about? What if I pigeon hole myself in a niche? What if I sound stupid? What if my blog looks bad? What if no one reads my blog? What if I cannot keep it up?

The list goes on and on for lawyers willing to be vulnerable and express their fears. Most lawyers mask their fears, coming up with other reasons not to blog.

In many cases fear can be an acronym for False Expectations that Appear Real. I think that’s the case with lawyers and blogging.

Reservations

Reservations tend to be ethics, liability, confidentiality, prejudicing a client’s position and the like.

Can I blog and network online in the way that public (not lawyers) blog and not run into these problems? Lawyers tend to “what if” and “but if” situations to death. They become paralyzed.

Fortunately, thousands of lawyers have been blogging, and blogging well, for over a decade without running into such problems. The problems are not reality.

Complacency

Not doing “first things first” and not getting off your butt are probably the greatest things holding lawyers back.

Lawyers say I am way too busy to blog. I have a zillion things to do. I am working 80 years a week and when I am off I want to relax and spend time with my family.

Perhaps all true, but the biggest things in your life are building a career, doing what you enjoy, and supporting your family. Don’t do these things and you won’t be working 80 hours (if that’s what you want) and you won’t be enjoying time off with your family.

A blog post on a niche blog every week or two that takes an hour or so is not much time to achieve the most important things in life.

Sitting on your ass is an altogether different thing, but all too many people are guilty of if.

How many speeches have you listened to that have inspired you to achieve greatness? How many books have you read by people who shared their stories on how to accomplish great things?

We just do not get exposed to such motivation as practicing lawyers. But we have to get out and get exposed to people, literature, and things that motivate us — that get us not to be complacent.

A blog is the great equalizer for lawyers. Many blogging lawyers are achieving what they could have only dreamed of before blogging.

So if you’re sitting on the fence on blogging, what’s holding you back? Fear, reservations, or complacency?

Image courtesy of Flickr by Timothy AV