Blogging for Change (5) – Procrastination to Desire

This is the 5th installment of a 6 part series on blogging that brings about lasting change. Before reading on you might like to Read the introduction here.

Stage 4 – Procrastination to Desire

You have gotten the attention of your readers, they are interested in what you are blogging about, they even see how it relates to them and how they can respond to the it, you are doing great! But now comes the challenge that stops many of us from responding to things that we ‘should’ d0 – we procrastinate! We say, ‘well yes, that’s something that I should do – one day’.

You next task is breaking the cycle of procrastination and instilling desire in your readers to actually take some action – to make the change. If all you do is convince your reader you are only doing half the job. They will go to the next blog and soon forget what they’ve just been challenged about – your entry will end up just being another long forgotten entry that they once read.

If you want to create change in your readers you have to help create a desire within them to take some action, to make a change, to enter further on into a process. Actions speak louder than words!

Give your reader some way to respond to the issue at hand. This will vary depending upon what you’re writing about. You might ask them to leave a comment, to link up on their blog or to consider some other action. I often find asking a question (even if you know the answer) for people to respond to in comments is a good way of helping people to do something tangible with what you’ve written.

Inspire them, give them an incentive, show them the positive results of taking a hold of your invitation – do whatever you can to get them to take an active part in the process you’re blogging about.

The full steps in this process are:

1. Rejection to Attention
2. Indifference to Interest
3. Skepticism to Conviction
4. Procrastination to Desire
5. Fear to Commitment