Stop Overplanning Your Blog (Do This Instead!)

Ever feel like ideas for your blog never come to fruition? Sometimes over-planning can keep you from executing your brilliant ideas! Don’t miss these tips to move from planning pro to execution extraordinaire.

There is a fine line between planning and over-planning. 

Don’t get me wrong: I’m all about planning. I love planning so much I created a planner! But planning doesn’t actually get anything done. There is a fine line between planning and over-planning.

It might feel like you’re getting things done, but you’re just planning to get things done. If you really want to make big things happen in your business (which I know you do) at a certain point, you have to stop planning and start executing.

Execution is the only way to hit your goals and turn your blogging dreams into a reality. The only way you’ll get your blog up and running is to actually start blogging. The only way you’ll ever launch your own product is to actually create one!

All of those people you admire? The ones that do amazing things? I have a secret for you: they’re no better than you. They’re no smarter, or no more talented. They just had the courage to take the first step and get out there and do it. You can do the same thing!

Let’s dig a little deeper into how you can move from planning expert to execution extraordinaire.

Get Over the Planning Hump

I get it — it can be hard to find the courage to execute because planning is safer than executing.

The other day, I was chatting with a blogger friend who has some seriously amazing plans and ideas. She was telling me all about the incredible products she has in the pipeline, and I was thinking, “This is amazing! Your audience is going to eat this up!”

But there was one problem: nothing was quite ready to launch yet. She had lots of amazing projects and ideas in the works, but none of them were ready to roll out. She was stuck in planning mode and hadn’t made the move to execute.

I see this happen with bloggers all the time. And I totally get it! Sometimes we get so caught up in planning everything that we get overwhelmed and aren’t sure which way to execute it.

What I said to this friend (and what I would say to you if you were stuck in planning mode) was this: “Narrow it down. What’s the one product you can get done the fastest? It’s better to have one product that’s finished and ready to launch than 10 products in the planning phase. Pick a product, make a commitment, and set a launch date.”

That last piece of advice is key. Pick a product, make a commitment, and set a launch date. If you’re struggling to execute, set a deadline and put it on your calendar. Without a deadline, there’s no sense of urgency to get things done and you can find yourself trapped in planning purgatory.

Move Past Fear and Into Action

So how exactly do you move past fear and into action?

The key is to play to your strengths.

Everyone has a unique set of gifts they bring to the table, and if you can leverage your own strengths and use them to your advantage, it’ll be much easier to move forward in your business.

But what if you don’t know what your strengths are?

I’ve definitely been there. It can be hard to objectively assess where we shine and where we might struggle. That’s why I love personality assessments. StrengthsFinder, the Kolbe Index, the DISC Assessment, … seriously, I love them all.

I’ve gone through them all and so has everyone on my team. Knowing the strengths of each of my team members lets me play to those strengths and inspire the best out of every single person on the team.

The same is true for you. By understanding your natural strengths, you can set your business up in a way that plays to those strengths. Executing on your ideas will just feel automatic.

Find the Yin to Your Yang

When you complete personality assessments, you’ll find out a lot about your strengths. But you’ll also learn about your limitations, which can sometimes be challenging to hear.

I take the opposite approach. I think it’s amazing to know your limitations! Recognizing and understanding the areas you struggle with is so important in executing and moving forward in your business. Knowing your limitations helps you find the support you need to execute — or in other words, the yin to your yang.

My husband and I are the perfect examples of this. We literally have the opposite set of strengths. He and I both took the StrengthsFinder test. My top 10 were his bottom 10. We’re that different. I’m a quick start, he’s a chronic analyzer. I’m word-based, he’s numbers-based.

But that’s why we work so well together! He’s the yin to my yang. He’s strong in all the areas I struggle with, so he helps propel me forward in ways I wouldn’t be able to do on my own. And vice versa. There is a fine line between planning and over-planning. #ebawisdom

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In your business, you can do the same thing! When you understand your own limitations, you can fill in the gaps and find the support you need to move forward. So, for example, if you know that you’re great at writing content but struggle with the organizational piece, you can hire someone to create an editorial calendar and schedule your posts. You focus on your strengths (the writing), you have someone to support your limitations (organization), and voila! You’ve executed and published a bunch of amazing posts.

Everyone has different strengths and weaknesses, and there’s no single “right” way to do things. Don’t listen to anyone who tells you there is!

I was listening to a Grant Cardone book the other day, and while he made some good points, I really struggled with his “my way is the right way” mentality. It was clear he had very specific strengths (he’s competitive like me!), but I didn’t appreciate him belittling other personality types. There’s no right or wrong way to be; no right or wrong strengths. All we can do is make the best of what we have.

When you celebrate your strengths and get support to fill in the gaps on your limitations, you’ll get more done than you ever thought possible.

Put It All Into Action

This is a post about execution, so there’s no better time than the present to start executing! Getting a better sense of your strengths and limitations will do huge things for moving your business forward, so I challenge you to take these tests and see what you find out:

EBA Blogging Assessment

Do you have what it takes to become a successful blogger? This free assessment will measure your strengths and weaknesses to let you know if you have the grit, determination, and talent to be successful! 

DISC Assessment

The DISC Assessment is a free personality profile from the Tony Robbins team. It will tell you how you rate in four different categories: dominance, influence, steadiness, and conscientiousness.

16Personalities

16personalities is a free tool based on the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, a personality assessment that will place you in (you guessed it) one of 16 personality types. At the end of the assessment, you get access to an in-depth personality type profile that outlines everything from your strengths and weaknesses, to how you interact with others, to your ideal career choices.

Kolbe Index

The Kolbe Index is an assessment designed to show you your natural inclinations and strengths. This assessment is great because it shows you your natural process for doing things, which is super helpful in building a business. The Kolbe Index is $50, but trust me — it’s worth every penny!

StrengthsFinder

StrengthsFinder is a Wall Street Journal best-selling book and an in-depth personality assessment that identifies your top areas of strengths out of 34 themes. This goes more in depth than any other assessment and can give you real insight into how to use your strengths to your advantage. The assessment is free when you purchase the book StrengthsFinder 2.0.

I know this seems like a lot, but I promise, getting the information from these personality assessments will completely change the way you do business. You’ll get to know your strengths in a deeper and more intimate way, and then you can better capitalize on those strengths to execute and make more happen in your business.

And, like I mentioned before, not only will these assessments show you the areas where you shine, they’ll also show you the areas where you need a little extra support. Having that information is so helpful. It’ll show you exactly the kind of people you need surround yourself with to take your business to the next level (the yin to your yang).

That’s when you find what I like to call “the business sweet spot”. You work on things you’re naturally good at, people to support you in the areas where you’re limited, things start happening in your business, and it all just feels right and easy.

Don’t Let the Results Scare You

The whole reason I want you to do these personality assessments is to find the courage to execute and move forward in your business. But don’t let the results to scare you in the process!

Take your results with a grain of salt. Just because something isn’t a top strength doesn’t mean it’s impossible for you to do. And if you don’t have a team to support you, you can fill in the gaps of your limitations yourself. It just might not come as naturally and you may have to work for it.

But, if it’s something that’s important to you and your blog, don’t give up! There’s nothing (and I mean nothing) you can’t accomplish with a bit of elbow grease and a positive attitude.

Finding the courage to move from planning your blog to executing your blog can be tough, but you can do it! When you play to your strengths and move past the fear, big things happen.

Do you have what it takes to become a successful blogger? Take our free assessment to discover your strengths and weaknesses and find out if you have the grit, determination, and talent to be successful!