Challenging my brain for 31 days

One of the key elements behind maintaining a healthy brain and long term performance is always looking to exercise and challenge it in new ways. One skill that is highly recommended is writing followed by learning a foreign language. Writing in a foreign language should give you a super brain boost, but I’m only up to taxing my brain with blogging.

I’ve been part of blogging challenges before. Some I’ve completed in terms of the grueling 30 – 31 days straight blogging while others died early on the vine. I marvel at those who appear to have something of relevance to say everyday. I on the other hand, like to sit with my information. Mull it over and make it perfect before I hit the Publish key.

When committed to blogging everyday I’ve learned to settle for imperfection and focus on the key message. The key message is better some days than other, but that’s what challenging my brain is all about. This new 31 day challenge is different. Each day there is a reading assignment with tips and guidelines for improving the quality of the blogging message.

Now, into the second week I decided to look back at how I have challenged my brain.

The first assignment was to have some form of analytic tracking installed. The second was to find another group member group to be your blogging buddy. The third was to utilize some form of an editorial planner. The fourth was to engage in brainstorming. The fifth and final assignment was to incorporate a list of key points into a post.

On the surface, this looks like a repeat of homework assignments from school days. But, on a deeper brain level I really found myself being challenged.

I’m not a big fan of what I call the “techi” stuff. Getting Google analytics up and running was a challenge to do. However, it becomes a greater challenge by having statistics showing you that your business is not growing the way it should be and you need to do something about it.

Finding a blogging buddy was not difficult, but my brain was emotionally challenged. I’m working with a person I have never met, know very little about and expected to build some form of relationship with. Emotionally, the brain is better at person-to-person connections. But, that’s the secret of Internet blogging – learning how to build those emotional connections with those who start out as total strangers.

Using some form of editorial planner for me is very challenging. My brain seems to rebel when it comes to working with calendars and time schedules, but does very well with organizing and laying out information. It looks like I will be continually challenged to keep to a daily schedule. I’m still two blog posts behind from last week, but I’m catching up.

Brainstorming is my favorite challenge. It seems my brain is always brimming over with lots of ideas. Too many in fact and I already have a long list of topics to write about. My only problem is finding where I saved the resource articles. And, that’s the challenge – finding them and recognizing that I really need to work on a better digital filing system.

Lastly, the challenge of making lists. For me finding the points for making a list is relatively simple. The challenging part is formulating the information down into concise wording. Because, before you know it my simple point turns into a paragraph with all that I want to say.

There are twenty-five days left in this blogging challenge and twenty-five more ways to challenge my brain. I’ll be curious to see if my brain is still up for the challenge.