Chris Mance II - Mental Skills Coach

As I get older, I often think of the old saying you can’t teach an old dog new tricks. It usually comes to mind as I start doing something a certain way because that’s the way I’ve always done it. Then I remind myself that I don’t want to become an old dog.

I say this because becoming an old dog has nothing to do with age, instead it’s all about your mentality.

If you do something the same way every time and never investigate if there is a better way, then you’re an old dog.  If someone ask you why you do things a certain way, and you respond by saying that’s the way it has always been done, then you’re an old dog.

The reality is you can not teach an old dog new tricks. So the trick is not to become an old dog.

Is the rise of the daily blog hurting the internet? Being that I am both a blogger who publishes daily and an advocate of the practice, I stopped in my tracks when I read a post from Atlanta entrepreneur Mike Schinkel saying as much.

In a blog post he titled The Web Needs You To… STOP BLOGGING! he pleads for several prominent daily bloggers to stop the practice for both their own good and the good of the community, to include Atlanta’s startup guru David Cummings and renowned venture capitalist Fred Wilson. Schinkel also cites four reasons why the practice of blogging daily is bad:

1. Daily blogs lack depth
2. With so many people now writing daily blogs, there is way too much noise in the blogosphere
3. The content in daily blogs lack excellence
4. Writing a daily blogs takes up time that could be used for better things

It’s hard to argue with any of Schinkel’s points head on, as much of what he states is true. Especially the point he makes about writing daily vs. publishing daily, advocating that daily bloggers should instead write every day on the same post, going more in depth before they hit the publish button.

I can honestly say reading Schinkel’s post has swayed me from advocating so hard for others to start blogging daily, but it won’t stop me doing it myself.  For me, blogging daily is a personal journey rather than some external sound box. It’s the perfect tool for introspection. I would even go as far as calling it medicinal.

So when it comes down to it, when you blog daily for internal fulfillment rather than external validation, most of what Schinkel argues becomes irrelevant.

If a habit is not an addiction, then it’s not a habit. It’s just plain old will power.  It’s discipline. It’s self-control.

A habit is the opposite. It’s something you do instinctively. Something you do effortlessly without much control.  It may even be something that causes you some degree of pain when you don’t do it. Something that requires will power to stop doing, not to start doing.

For some reason, however, we only apply this thinking to bad habits. It’s common to acknowledge that bad habits sneak up on you without much effort. Think about it, who works hard everyday to create a bad habit?

Yet, when the discussion of habits is on building good habits we lose site of this.  The reality is that “good” habits aren’t habits at all.  If they were, there wouldn’t be so many people out there still trying to figure out how to create good habits.

It doesn’t matter if you do something for 21, 30, 60 90, or 365 days in a row. Unless you become literally addicted to the activity, you will still need will power, discipline and self-control to do it again the next time.