Have you ever started a blog post full of energy… only to abandon it halfway through?

If that sounds familiar, this episode is for you.

We’re not talking about laziness, discipline or “needing to try harder.” We’re talking about what really happens in the middle of a blog post - the moment where doubt creeps in, decisions multiply, and suddenly it feels easier to step away than to finish.

In this episode, I explore:

1. Why having lots of ideas isn’t the same as finishing
2. What the “middle wobble” actually is
3. How thoughtful therapists can accidentally make blogging harder than it needs to be
4. Why confidence tends to grow after you finish, not before

If you’ve got half-written drafts waiting for you, this one might feel uncomfortably familiar.

Links & Resources

Framework First – support to help you finish what you start

Buy me a coffee – if you found this helpful

Do you find that you start blog posts easily, but you rarely finish them? Maybe you get loads of ideas, maybe ideas are not really the problem. The problem is what happens halfway through that little middle bit. That's where most blog posts fall apart. So that's what I'm gonna talk about today and we're gonna have a look at why that happens.

Hello, hello, hello and welcome back if this is your first time here, a very warm welcome to you. Now, just a quick note. I've got a bit of a cold. I feel fine. It's just that I, I'm aware of the fact my nose is really blocked up, so I apologize for that. Anyway, so let's crack on now.

If you've ever opened yet another blog draft where you've got like about 30 blog drafts already written, and you've thought to yourself, why do I keep doing this? Well, this episode is for you because I don't think the issue here is maybe what you think it is. So, let me talk about me for a minute. I've always been really good at coming up with ideas.

Genuinely, that's a part that has never, ever been hard for me. So when I tweaked the Grow Your Private Practice membership to focus more on blogging rather than general marketing, I came up with. Now, and this is true, I came up with over a hundred ideas for blog posts and podcasts, and I've just current, I've had a little look and I currently have 106 blog posts and ideas, sat there waiting for me to go and, beef them out a bit.

Now they're in, in Belbin team role theory. There's something called if go and check that out. I'll put the details in the show notes. But it's basically about team roles, obviously, and there's something in there that's called The Plant. And the plant is kind of the ideas person. The person who generates possibilities, who makes connections, who spots angles.

Stories, all of that. Now that's me. That is me down to a T. Give me a blank page and I'll happily wander off in 10 different directions. Ideas arrive quickly and there's plenty of them, but Belbin also talks about the completer finisher. So the completer finisher is the person that tides the whole thing up, who checks the details, who brings the thing over the line, and makes sure that it actually gets done. And if I'm honest, that role just doesn't come naturally to me. I can start strong, I can explore.

I can connect ideas beautifully, but staying with one direction long enough to let it take shape and then to trim it and to finish it, and that takes quite a lot of effort for me. And blogging. It turns out it needs both. I mean, who knew? You know? So you need to have the spark there to have the ideas, and you need to be able to follow it through.

So what would actually happen to me was this, I'd start in one clear direction and I'd start writing about it, and then my little brain, my little, my little sparky brain would think of a different angle. I'd think, oh, I could talk about it like this, or I could think about a different, you know, a story that might go in there as well.

Or a different angle. And before long what would happen is the middle of the blog would feel really confused and messy because I'd started going down a bit of a rabbit hole and yeah, it got confused. And that's not really what you want is it. And that is usually when my inner critic would show up and start poking.

And that could be enough to absolutely zap my confidence. And I tell myself, right, okay, I'll come back to this when I feel a little bit clearer. But you know the rest of this, the truth is I rarely did. Once I'd done a blog post once I'd written a draft and put that much energy into it, and then I didn't finish it, I rarely would go back to it.

It would feel as much effort as starting a brand new blog. And this is where the whole thing stops being about the blog post. And this is where it starts to become about you. Because when this happens often enough, you start to create a story. And that story could be something like, well, look, I'm just rubbish at writing.

Or maybe I'm not very good at marketing, or maybe blogging just isn't my thing, and that can feel really uncomfortable. Because you're a therapist, you know you are a therapist, you're a thoughtful person. You help other people to notice patterns and to make changes. And here you are stuck halfway through a blog post, and that could knock your confidence way more than you expect it will.

So you might see other therapists that blog regularly and kind of assume that they've cracked something that you haven't. But the truth is, you know, after years of working with therapists, the thing that I've noticed is this, it doesn't really come down to ability. It's more about recognizing what's happening in that confusing middle.

What's going on there for you. Because the therapists that finish consistently, they're not braver. They're not more disciplined than you. They've just stopped being surprised that the middle of the blog post section is gonna make them have a bit of a wobble. So that means that they can deal with it a bit better.

So let's talk properly about that middle bit. Let's look at the psychology of the middle here, because the middle of anything is often very uncomfortable. You know, the excitement at the beginning is worn off. The finish line isn't yet in sight, so you're kind of in the twilight zone of blogging, you know, and in that middle moment you are asked to commit to choose your angle to decide what this post is all about, and to let go of any other ideas that you've also got that look promising too.

Now in writing, there's actually a phrase. The phrase is, kill your darlings, and that means this. It just means that just because you love an idea, it doesn't mean that that's the best thing to include in this particular blog post. And that's not easy. When you've got loads of ideas and you like all of those ideas, deciding not to use one of those ideas can be quite difficult.

I certainly find it quite difficult. So if you are like me and you generate ideas relatively quickly, they can all seem good. They can all seem to be worth keeping. So how can he possibly kill one of them off? But this isn't a structural issue. This is an emotional issue. Because it means that you have to tolerate uncertainty.

It means that you have to allow something to be complete rather than perfect. And we all know that getting something done is better than getting, making, making something perfect. So it means accepting that this post isn't gonna include everything that you wanted to talk about, because by including everything you wanted to talk about, you're gonna have a very meandering blog post that gets confusing, that gets flabby, and the point that you want to make is going to be lost within it.

Now I know that you care deeply about doing things well, and that is why this can feel risky. So your brain looks for some relief. So relief can look productive. So it might be that you open up another tab and you tweak the introduction again, or you decide you need to do a little bit more research. You don't.

You don't need to do more research. It might be that you think, right, if I start a fresh document because this one feels messy, then I can start afresh. So that feels kind of sensible, but if we really look at this, we can see that this is just kind of an avoidance thing. Because this is, none of this is to do with the fact that you are lazy.

That's not what it is at all. It's because you are feeling uncomfortable and that discomfort in the middle, I want to tell you, is very humid. It's very, very normal. So if you get to the middle bit and you find your blog post kind of gets a bit confused, that's not in the slightest. Bit unusual, okay? So please don't tell yourself it's because you can't do this.

So I want you to just pause for a moment, and I want you to think of a blog post that you've started but you've not finished. And I imagine if you like me, you've maybe got a few of those. So I want you to just think about it, that you could pause this and go and check one out actually if you wanted to, but have a look at it and think to yourself, what was it that actually stopped you from completing this?

Was it because you'd genuinely run outta time? Or maybe it was that moment when it stopped feeling clear, when it all felt a little bit fuzzy, when it all felt a little bit like there were lots of different angles competing for attention. Did the doubt creep in? You know, did you start questioning your angle and did you think, well, look, I'm not sure that this is good enough, and if you are honest, what was really happening there?

Because if you can see that moment clearly, then you're in a position to handle it different next time. So if you know that this is a regular thing for you, you can go, right, okay, this is the wobbly middle bit. And it's now that I need to sort of go back to my, my plans for what I wanted in this blog and make sure that I follow them.

So the thing that changed for me wasn't that I tried harder. You know, it wasn't that I tried harder to be more disciplined or that I actually became more disciplined. That that certainly, that certainly never happened, but it was about recognizing that I was asking myself to play the part of the complete finisher role without any support.

Being an ideas person is brilliant, and to be honest, I love it. It's brilliant, but a blog won't finish itself. So what helped me wasn't more motivation. It was reducing the number of decisions that I had to make when I was in that vulnerable middle. So once I wasn't reinventing the whole thing again, time after time, you know, every time I sat down to write, it all started to feel a little bit steadier. So doubt still shows up and low energy shows up, but my blogs don't collapse because of it anymore. So finishing stopped feeling like a massive mountain. It felt more doable, and that's when my confidence started to build. Not before I finished, but because I finished. And this matters to you if you are great at starting things, but you are less confident about finishing them because there's nothing wrong with you.

Like I say, there's nothing wrong with you. This is just you being a, a human being really. You don't need fewer ideas. You don't need more willpower to be able to push through. You don't need to check. Good Lord. You don't need to change your personality. You are absolutely fine as you are. You just need to get some support that works with how your brain already operates.

Now, this is exactly why I started the framework first. It's why it exists. It's not here to tell you what to write. And it's not here to squeeze your voice into a particular formula, but the whole point of the framework first is to hold that middle bit steady so that your ideas don't fall apart halfway through.

So look, if this episode has felt familiar to you, you know, if you know that you've got lots of draft posts that you've started but never finished, then it might be worth having a look at the framework first, because this could be the missing piece between starting and actually finishing. And you'll find all of the links in the show notes.

So here's what I want you to take from this. Now, if your blog posts keep stalling halfway through, it's probably not a discipline problem. It's a middle problem. It's not a middle child problem. It's a middle problem, and the middle bit becomes easier when you recognize that that's part of your process, that these middle bits are always the bit that trips you up, and so therefore it's worth knowing that, right? This is just me doing what I always do and I'm going through that difficult middle bit. And remember that it might be that it would make it easier if you stop track to navigate it alone, being able to finish your blog post, it's not a personality trait, it's a supported skill. So now if this episode has helped or it's made you feel seen or it's given you a little bit of clarity, I just want to let you know that you can support the podcast by buying me a coffee. There's a link in my show notes. There's no pressure at all, but it does help to keep the show going. So really I just want to say thank you so much for listening and remember, you don't need to become a different kind of person to finish your blog posts.

You just need the right support to stay with them long enough. Have a brilliant rest of the week and I look forward to speaking to you soon. Take care. Bye-bye.