Last week was a lot. I had a multi-day migraine. My family was traveling for a wedding. And I was dealing with an extended family emergency. This was all in addition to my regular work and personal duties. There was no way I could even think about getting started on work for my business. Not fun. Not fun at all.

When it came down to it, I knew I couldn’t write a lot last week. So I wrote one blog post and called it a week. I don’t even know how I got that one blog post done if I’m being completely honest.

In the past, this interruption might be enough to throw me completely off track. But I’ve changed. And as soon as I got home, I did my best to pick things back up immediately.

How have I gotten here?

Prepare

The fact is that we all will fall off the wagon of constant content creation, so we need to prepare for those moments. I had in the past been working at least a week in advance. I didn’t have to worry about things coming up and I could just keep going. But of course, I had some things come up which cut into the preparation I had done. It happens, and I’ve already started working to get that lead time back.

But even as I saw things slip away from me last week, I was preparing to come back this week. I wrote the beginnings of a few blog posts. In fact, this is the only post I had to start from scratch this week, which makes it loads easier to get back on the horse and do things. Knowing I had reached my limit but also knowing I could do a little to help me get back to everything helped immensely.

Throw away what should have been

Look, I disappoint myself when I don’t do things perfectly. And I keep thinking about what I should have done. The longer I’m stuck there, the less effective I become.

I throw away the expectations I have of myself and act like nothing happened at all. Maybe no one is even noticing that I’m off schedule. Maybe the ones who did notice think it’s a good idea for me to take a break. But honestly, the only person that cares about how often I post is me. So taking those expectations off of myself and getting back with a clean slate helps immensely.

Make it easy

None of the topics I’m writing about are really taxing to me this week. That’s by design.

The worst thing you could do in this situation is to write a bunch of information heavy posts that require a lot of research and fact checking. Figure out what you could write about that’s fun and simple for you. Not everything you put out there has to move mountains, and that’s particularly true when you come back from a time away. The purpose of this content is to get you started again. You can work on anything else later.

Could you just not publish this kind of stuff? Sure. But I think there is something to getting you back fully into the routine of writing, editing and publishing. It makes it feel normal again and will get you back to the difficult stuff a little quicker than if you chose to not to publish. Because we are fighting a mental battle after all.

If it seems too hard, go back to preparing

I’m always in a rush to do all the things. But when it starts to overwhelm me and feels like too much, I immediately start pulling back. I have a daughter now, so it’s even more important than ever to save a bit of myself for her but also for me. Running myself ragged doesn’t help anyone.

So if I’m in the process of coming back and it’s too much pressure, then I go back to preparing. I come up with topics, and if that feels good, I write a little on those topics as well. But there’s no pressure and I’m not really trying to complete blog posts. I’m just trying to give myself little sparks that are available for me to use when I am ready to fully come back. I might use them. I might just throw them away in favor of something else. But they are there to get me going again.

How do you get started again after a break?