The Most Important Day of Your Life http://ift.tt/1Hiqxl4 @jeffgoins #blogging

This is the first day of the rest of your life.
—Matt Maher

The Most Important Day of Your Life

Every day, I wake up and ask myself a question: “What’s the most important message I could share today?”

It’s a simple, slightly dramatic exercise that reminds me of all the noise and clutter in our world. Will I add to it or cut through with something substantial?

This keeps me on my toes. Makes me check myself.

I believe we all need to be asking these types of questions more often.

Relearning something old

A few years ago, I started a new blog. I had been publishing online for five years prior, but this time something was different. In starting over, I re-learned everything I thought I knew about blogging.

Turns out, you can always learn something new — even about something old.

As a result, I became much better at my craft. All because of starting over.

Every day, we go back to zero. And that’s not such a bad thing. There is something beautiful (and hard) about starting over. It requires courage and perseverance, but it can also be freeing.

Realizing you have to do this every day makes you aware of the distractions. It keeps you sharp. Prevents you from becoming lazy.

Making your message matter

Once on this blog, I wrote a post about The Hunger Games being the future of writing, which stirred quite a bit of conversation and controversy (read it here).

I made a prediction about the future, which may or may not come true, but my point was this: The world is changing, and those who learn to adapt will succeed.

With dwindling attention spans, it’s becoming more difficult to maintain an audience. Those who are sensitive to this will have a better chance at being heard. As Seth Godin explained: “Shorter… doesn’t mean less responsibility, less insight or less power. It means less fluff and less hiding.”

This isn’t about keeping things short. It’s about making your message matter in a world that doesn’t know it needs you.

A chance and a choice

Every day, you have the chance to say something. I’m not going to tell you it has to be brief, but it does have to be important. And you don’t get to decide that. Your audience does.

What is up to you is the choice to be remarkable. As is the decision to be mediocre.

This is the first day of the rest of your life. So is tomorrow. And the next day.

I wonder what you’ll do with it.

Bonus: for a limited time you can grab my book You Are a Writer for free. Click here to get your copy.