I was disappointed in myself for not consistently recording audio versions of my blog. Yesterday I figured out what was tripping me up and what changes were needed. Today I implemented those changes and recorded twelve audio posts. I’m happy to report that I’m all caught up!

Now, I’m focused on staying current and getting reps daily to improve the quality of the recordings and, eventually, my storytelling skills.

A few takeaways from today’s recording session:

• Mindset matters – Shifting my mindset to getting practice reps helped. I felt more relaxed, and the words flowed more smoothly.
• Mistakes – I didn’t sweat the small errors. I rerecorded when I made big mistakes (like coughing loudly mid-sentence). After listening to the small errors during playback, I decided they make the recordings more authentic. I’m not the only person who stumbles over words occasionally, so why take that out? We’ll see if my thinking evolves on this, but right now, I like the idea of being human (flaws and all) in these recordings and not a perfect robot.
• What I like – I now think about recording what I want to hear, not what I think other people want to hear. If I like the recordings, then others will like them too. If I don’t like them, then no one will.
• Talking to yourself – Talking to yourself is harder than I imagined, and listening to yourself talking to yourself is even harder. I have more respect for people who do this regularly at a high level. It’s simple but far from easy.
• Books – I’ve been reading at an accelerated clip lately. The posts sharing takeaways from books are my favorites. Reading and writing about what I learned from my reading is a powerful combination. I knew this already, but hearing these recordings reinforced it and motivated me to do more of this kind of post.

I’m energized about getting this habit formed. I think good things will come from it. I don’t know of anyone who blogs and records their blogs every day. I’m excited to see if I can accomplish something hard that others can’t or won’t do.

You can listen to audio versions of my blog posts on Apple here and Spotify here.