4 Ways You’re Procrastinating Real Progress In Your Business

I hope you have come to this blog post ready to be called out & kicked in the ass a little bit (lovingly!!), because that’s what I’m doing today! As a blogging queenie who works mainly with overworked wedding pros, literally every single one of my clients + students shares the same problems to some degree: they don’t know HOW to blog, they don’t WANT to blog, and/or they don’t have TIME to blog. And 99% of the time, the reasons they’re struggling are also pretty much the same. So today, I wanted to address 4 ways you may be unintentionally procrastinating real, meaningful progress in your business, whether that be with blogging, with your marketing in general, with your client experience, whatever it may be.

I’m here to help identify some of the biggest problems that I see you + the rest of my audience experiencing, because it can be hard to realize it when you’re looking at it from the inside of your biz. And for each of the 4 issues, I’ll be playin’ doctor by giving you three things:

• A diagnosis 🩺
• An RX 💊
• A list of side effects ⚠️

Because you simply can’t fix an issue in your biz without knowing the root cause, and there WILL most likely be a few side effects that come along with making significant changes! Plus I just thought it was a little bit more fun & a little less daunting this way🤣

4 Ways You’re Unintentionally Procrastinating Meaningful Progress in Your Business

1. You wait to take action until something is “perfect”

Oof, we’re starting off strong here with the BIGGEST and most prominent one that I see alllll the time: you don’t allow yourself to hit “publish,” to launch, to take action on something until it is absolutely, positively perfect. And let me be the first to tell you that I am constantly running into this as well in my own business – even with my own blogs that I’m publishing for you! It’s not something I’ve 100% figured out, but I have made a TON of progress these last few years. 

I believe that moving past perfectionism is the #1 most important thing when it comes to finding success with blogging – yes, EVEN more important than learning SEO, writing great copy, and targeting the right audience. That’s because without moving past perfectionism, you will literally never get started. If you’re still under the persistent AF hold of perfectionism, you will NEVER grow past where you’re at right now, no matter how many SEO courses you take or keyword research tools you pay for.

Which is why even if the blog post you publish is a little messy, or isn’t quite what you ideally want it to be, it is STILL 100x better than no blog post at all! I would be much more likely to book with you if you had 3-4 short, but high-quality & informational article blogs on your website, than a photographer who had no resources available to help make my life easier. 

’ll be honest – this WILL take some practice. If you’re used to waiting until something’s perfect in order to put it out there, it’s going to feel very uncomfortable & scary to publish something imperfect. You’re probably going to doubt yourself and feel a little (or a lot) a bit of imposter syndrome, feeling like “What I have to say isn’t valuable enough” or “Everybody’s going to notice that this blog post/course/product isn’t 100% perfect.” And let me give you the permission to FEEL that, but put it out there anyway!!

And a quick note: I actually ended up writing WAYYY too much for this section when I first drafted it, because I could go on and on about why it’s so important to move past perfectionism if you want to find success with blogging. So I went ahead and turned it into a whole separate blog post😅 Hop on over to that partner blog post, “Why I Believe It’s Okay to Half-Ass Your Blogs (At First),”if you’re a ✨perfectionism queen/king✨ who needs a little bit more of a push in this area!

TLDR; – Repeat after me: My blog post/course/product provides incredible value to my audience, EVEN in its imperfect form. Messy action > no action!!

🩺 Diagnosis: Perfectionism with a sprinkle of self-doubt & a fear of failure

💊 Rx: Messy, imperfect action

⚠️ Side Effects: Fear, discomfort, imposter syndrome

PRO TIP: Perfectionism is wayyy easier to beat when you have a strong place to start – check out my Plug N’ Play Blog Templates for Photographers if you’d rather be able to just easily fill in your copy & have prompts tell you exactly what to write!🙌🏼

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2. You keep migrating website platforms until you find the “right” one for SEO

Ever heard the saying, “the grass is always greener on the other side”? Of course you have. I don’t know why I’m asking. But have you heard the rebuttal to that – “the grass is greener where you water it”?

This one is SEO and blogging-specific, so buckle up, my blogging besties!

The second way you’re procrastinating actual progress in your business is by migrating website platforms until you find the “right” one. Maybe you started on Squarespace, but then you saw an SEO educator say you should be on Showit/Wordpress if you want to blog successfully. Okay, now you’ve spent the last 3 months migrating platforms, but a year later you come across an Instagram Reel that says WordPress on its own is the best option for SEO. All of a sudden it’s been 9 months and you’ve spent an enormous amount of time & energy setting up the perfect website, but you have no results to show from it. 

This is one that I myself am 1000% guilty of doing at the start of my business. I never published any blogs on my Squarespace site because I felt like it “wasn’t worth it,” waiting instead until I migrated to Showit – because only THEN would my blog posts have a chance at success.

I am here to tell you that you can find success with blogging on ANY website platform. Pixieset. WordPress. WordPress/Showit. Squarespace. 

While some platforms definitely have more SEO capabilities and tend to perform better than others in some aspects, there are MANY different factors that affect your rankings on Google besides the platform you use, including:

• The quality of your content
• Optimization of your headings + pages + copy
• Target keywords
• Images
• Page loading speed
• User journey
• How long your website has been up
• Backlinks
• How consistently you’re creating fresh content
• Competitors’ content

So sure, Pixieset doesn’t have as many SEO tools as WordPress. And sure, using Narrative to blog *can* affect your SEO.

But if using Pixieset & Narrative is the path of least resistance for you, the path that’s going to get you to actually START blogging — then USE THEM!!

Be encouraged that no matter what platform you are on, you absolutely have the potential to get results from your blogging, and what matters MOST is that you actually publish high-quality, consistent content – NOT that you are on the absolute best, top-rated website platform with the most possible SEO capabilities on the planet.

However, here are a few reasons I WOULD consider switching website platforms:

👉You’re finding your platform difficult to use/navigate on the backend

👉You’re wasting too much time on tedious tasks because your platform isn’t very user-friendly

👉The front-facing user experience isn’t very aesthetic/easy to navigate

👉You’re limited in design and it’s hindering the readability of your blog posts

👉You’re finding your platform difficult to use/navigate on the backend

👉You can realistically manage switching platforms AND keeping up with your blogging, or are in a position to hire somebody to do it for you

TLDR; If you’re constantly switching platforms to try and find the “best” one, you’re never going to actually make progress on your blog and move forward toward your goals.

Blogging consistently, strategically, & with SEO in mind on the platform you have is better than not blogging at all or being inconsistent because all your time + energy is taken up migrating your website every few months! The grass will be greener where you water it 🌱

🩺 Diagnosis: “Grass is always greener” syndrome

💊 Rx: Make the most of what you already have & only migrate if necessary

⚠️ Side Effects: Perfectionism, temptation to switch when something could be slightly “better”

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3. You constantly switch up the backend programs you use

This is pretty similar to number 2 – and I’m veryyy guilty of it as well!

Raise your hand if you’re so obsessed with the backend of your business being *perfect* that you find yourself CONSTANTLY switching up the programs you use to organize, brainstorm, & plan😬

Oops it’s meeee — and probably a lot of you too! It’s Trello one day, Notion the next, Asana a month later, aaand suddenly I’m back to starting over with Notion. And the cycle continues. And then my ideas are in TEN DIFFERENT PLACES AT ONCE and I’ve made zero progress whatsoever.

I love me a fucking deliciously-organized system with formulas, workflows, and automations, but the reality is that it’s just not always possible for me to get all of that set up BEFORE I start a new project. Sometimes, you just have to start even if your backend is imperfect, even if your ideas are all over the place, and even if your workflow aren’t perfectly-oiled machines. Because thankfully, you can STILL get all the same results from blogging even if your ideas aren’t organized perfectly in your Trello – luckily your clients will never see that end of it! 😉

TLDR; If you’re spending all your time “getting ready” to blog/work on your course/etc. while you get your backend shit together, you will never actually get to it. You need to pick whatever will help you reach your goals EASIEST. Just like when it comes to choosing your website platform, choose the path of least resistance!

🩺 Diagnosis: Chronic indecision with a splash of commitment issues

💊 Rx: Choose the path of least resistance

⚠️ Side Effects: Perfectionism, impatience

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4. You take course after course after course

The fourth and final one is yet another that I’m, again, very guilty of – I don’t even know how many marketing courses I own, or how many goddamn sets of similar presets I have in my Lightroom library. Listen up to this one if you’re the type of business owner who buys course after course after course. . . and never gets the results you were promised.

If you’re a chronic-course-buyer, you’re likely:

1. Hoping that THIS will finally be the one that works
2. Crossing your fingers that THIS one will actually speak to you + spark a change
3. Praying that THIS will be the one that changes everything

. . . when, in fact, when in fact, absolutely zero will change if you don’t *actually* put in the work. You’re eager to find a quick solution, but I hate to tell you – you just won’t. 

The only solution to this one is to commit to ACTUALLY putting the work into one course before buying another, or before giving up on that one. Again, I know this is hard – it’s so much easier to just buy a new one and hope that somehow, it will be the right one that completely changes your business! 

TLDR; You just gotta commit and put the work in, my friend. No course will work for you if you stop doing the work halfway through – you can ONLY get back what you put in!

🩺 Diagnosis: Lack of patience with a hint of commitment issues

💊 Rx: Commit to one before buying another

⚠️ Side Effects: Impatience, dedication

P.S. If you’re looking for a blogging course that doesn’t require you to switch every damn platform you use, and instead teaches you how to be successful with what you already have, then I would absolutely LOVE to have you in my Blogging Bootcamp – available now on my website 😉 

Okay sooo are you feeling a little more ready to finally address what’s stoppipng you from blogging? Whether you’ve discovered that you’ve got a case of perfectionism, “grass is always greener” syndrome, chronic indecision, or a lack of patience, I want to encourage you that you are SO capable of getting results from blogging even despite all that.

And if you’re STILL feeling that writer’s block and would rather just have a blog post template that tells you exactly what to write, head over to the Defy Shop & check out my blogging templates for wedding photographers below. These templates make it even easier to publish high-quality blog posts, without struggling to come up with what the hell to write about!

Happy blogging!

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If any of these jumbled thoughts encourage you to create & publish a blog post, send me the link to the final product at danielle@defycreativeco.com so I can see it! Bonus points if you’re down to have me feature it on my website to show other readers a fabulous example – let me know in the email 😉