Why is it easier for me to post on social media than post on a blog? I have an easier time starting a Facebook post and then deciding after it’s mostly written that it is more appropriate on my blog. Once I’ve decided it’s going on the blog, I hit a wall. What’s the deal?

I said I was going to blog about ADHD every day in October. It’s the 26th and this is only my third post. (That’s embarrassing.) What you don’t see (but if you have ADHD, you probably already know) is that I have ten unfinished drafts open in tabs in my browser. That’s in addition to the 21 tabs I have open on other various topics.

I do have a lot going on right now. We just lost our cat to Cancer, we’re still working to complete construction on our home and my son’s IEP meeting is coming up. This is all in addition to the daily struggle we have just keeping up while parenting a complex twice-exceptional kid and a preschooler.

Still, I could keep up with this if I could just crank out a post.

What is holding me back?

• Starting a new post is shiny and new and thus more fun to write.
• I’m a perfectionist and have a difficult time finishing (publishing) if there could be typos, grammar mistakes, something that’s confusing to my readers or not well thought out.
• I feel I have to defend everything I write before it’s even been read.
• I need large chunks of time in order to hyper-focus and publish before I lose my flow. Once it’s gone, it’s a struggle to get it back.
• I don’t have large chunks of time because I have kids and other time constraints.
• Social media feels private even if it’s not. A blog is clearly public and tied my public image.
• A lifetime of undiagnosed ADHD has left me with negative assumptions of how others perceive me and a belief that the world is unfair and cruel. No matter how hard I work, it never feels like enough.

 

What to do about these stumbling blocks? I better include that in another post or this one may never be published. Wish me luck!

What are your writing stumbling blocks? How about challenges completing tasks in other areas of your life? How do you overcome them?