I just wrapped up a short ebook I’ve been working on to give away to folks who join our mailing list at workingmenshealthandfitness.com.  It started out simply enough – I figured it would be a few pages at most. Unfortunately the more I wrote the more I wanted to write. At one point I had to stop and really ask myself what I was doing and what I wanted to accomplish. I could easily write every day for a year and still not cover everything. 

The ebook is (was) supposed to lay a foundation for the 4 pillars of healthy living by giving a brief explanation of each and some examples and tips or ideas. At the end I added a little bonus about building habits. In all the thing spans 9 pages, which isn’t too bad considering I could have written 1,000 pages or more. 

The real struggle with it wasn’t being brief, it was fearing that I wasn’t giving people enough value. I kept thinking about people downloading the ebook, reading it and being disappointed that it was too short or didn’t have enough information or wasn’t what they expected. That fear inhibited my progress and likely extended the length of the project several extra days. 

I’m obsessed with value. I want people who visit our site to be blown away with their experience. I want to give until it hurts and then give some more. I’ve found through experience that I often fear that I’m not giving enough value and that fear temporarily paralyzes me. 

Thankfully I’m able to fight through it each time. I keep reminding myself that it’s not the end of the world no matter what people think. If I produce something they hate, I’ll do it better next time. If I hit a home run, that’s great too. 

The internet is nutty. Unlike the old days of face to face communication, we are sitting in little rooms pecking away at a computer keyboard and are thus deprived of seeing and gauging other people’s reactions easily. It’s a constant struggle to reassure myself and to keep moving forward. 

The good news is that I keep moving forward. I suspect that too many people never move forward or never get started in the first place. I sincerely hope that’s true – that way there are less people to compete with!