In December last year, I moved from Austin Texas to Los Angeles. The endless opportunities of a bigger city were the main attraction for me. I had spent 10 years in LA during the nineties and hadn't reached my full
potential yet. I moved to Las Vegas in 2003 and after losing a real estate bet there in 2006, I relocated to Austin where I spent 9 years. My life in Austin was comfortable, too comfortable. I needed to get out of my comfort zone to make things happen again. Moving to LA definitely made things happen for me. So after living in LA for almost 8 months now, I've finally reached a point where I can take some time to breathe. Between training clients at a boxing gym in Eagle Rock, a karate studio in Pasadena, a private training studio in West Hollywood and serving private clients all over the city, I've been staying busy. Yet, I still have openings in my schedule and take on new clients sporadically. In my spare time, I spend hours reading and researching, sometimes also writing. I write short articles about the topics I research, yet I'm very critical of my work and most of it never gets my ok to be published. So now, I'm making a decision: it's time to publish more often. I'll start with this blog post. I am a writer, I just need to write. It can be tempting to be overly critical of myself and therefore not produce at all. I tend to make excuses in regards to why I'm not writing often enough, or why I don't publish what I write. I'll tell myself the topics are too varied because I have so many interests; that I'm not really an authority on this or that subject. I have so many other things to do, like running a business. Truth is, all these excuses don't really hold much weight and why should I care what anyone thinks about what I write anyway? I'll deal with that when someone actually comments on one of my blog posts. (hint) Writing is an introspective, thoughtful activity and I'm an introspective type of guy. I spend days with my thoughts inwards, except for those hours I spend with clients of course. Those hours are social hours, you could say. I focus on each client and their goals, lifestyle, challenges and needs, which can be a very social process. Then after we part ways, my thoughts turn inwards again and I go back to my research, my own goals, values and motivations. These days anyone who has at least one story to tell can become a published author and sell their book. I'm not claiming to be ready to write a book at this time (even though I started writing one about 2 years ago), but I do have lots of stories to tell. The challenge with writing a book is to select just one topic and focus on it, see it through and commit to it. For now, I'll commit to writing this short blog post and I'm telling myself it will lead to writing and publishing the brilliant ideas and articles in my head on a regular basis. In other words, it's time to push the limits of my own self-imposed boundaries. I'm always invigorated by how much I learn while researching, reading and writing. It really does feel amazing. It's time to just write daily and not worry about a word-count. As long as I'm actually writing, I'm doing better than before. Coming up with quality topics can be a difficult process sometimes. After all, who is really my target audience? With over 25 years of fitness industry experience under my belt, I do offer a wide range of services and my audience ranges accordingly. Is it a mistake not to focus on just one focused area of the health and fitness field? Some may say it is, others would disagree. I guess it would come down to really knowing my audience. Let's just assume that I'm writing this blog post in part to get to know my audience then. Once I receive your blog comments, I'll be able to read them, respond to them and therefore better understand my audience. For now, I get to decide who it is I want to reach and I can't help but liking that freedom. Of course, I would prefer to write really relevant content and I know that has everything to do with who my audience is. Questions I have for you: 1. Who are you? This is crucial to understanding what should go into each piece of writing and the purpose it will serve. Knowing who you are will give me an idea of how much information to convey, what kind and also levels of details to include. 2. What are you interested in? The answer to this question will help me get an idea of what concepts to emphasize, what writing strategies to use and how to organize my information. 3. What are your challenges? Knowing your challenges will show me where to focus my efforts and how much time to spend in research. 4. What trending health related topics do you follow? There is a lot of information out there these days. Relevancy is my objective and I want to spend my time wisely to bring you the topics you actually care about. 5. What are your health and fitness issues? In order to successfully help you solve real issues, I really could use some help understanding them. When you take the time to answer even one of those questions it will help me to write about stuff that is relevant, appealing and actually makes a difference. I look forward to writing about super awesome topics that get you to your goals. My issue is not finding topics to write about. After all fitness, wellness and the many areas I have experience in, offer many options. The challenge is narrowing down the topics I'll write about. This, my dear audience, is where you come in. Leave a comment if you enjoyed this post. I'll be writing another one as soon as I select the first topic. Ask me to write about something that interests you personally. Thank you.
2 Comments
Hi Roland. I can relate to the struggle of following through. A good life challenge. Great job pushing forward!
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Roland
8/10/2016 12:17:52
Hello Christina !
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Roland CraeyeCoach, trainer, human performance researcher, traveler. Born in Belgium, moved to the US in '94. Currently living in Los Angeles. Archives
December 2017
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