Blog Post #500

This is my 500th blog post.

I didn’t expect to make it this far when I wrote the first blog post more than 3 years ago. There can be only one reason why I am able to keep up writing on this blog.

I like doing it.

There’s no denying it. When you feel you should do something, but you suspect that you won’t be able to keep it up, change the activity so that you enjoy it. Align the activity with some of your intrinsic desires.

For me they are:

• Acceptance: I enjoy it when readers appreciate my ideas.
• Curiosity: I love researching stuff and publishing the results.
• Relatedness: For an introvert a blog is a safe way to socialize.
• Idealism: I feel I have a mission, and I will stick to it.
• Status: I enjoy the growing readership and social network.
• Independence: This blog is my own autonomous project.
• Competence: Compliments make me feel competent and happy.

For me this blog satisfies no less than seven of the 10 intrinsic desires. That is a lot! It is exactly the kind of reinforcement you need when you start a difficult, challenging project. If the work is not able to satisfy you as a person, then why would you do it?

Some statistics:

I wrote blog post #400 exactly one year ago. Readership has grown to 1240 page views (915 visits) per day, and 5600 RSS feed subscribers.

The most popular posts I wrote since blog post 400 were:

1. Top 100 Agile Books
2. Simplicity: A New Model
3. The Customer Value Problem: Ditch the Value Stream!
4. ALE Gathering at XP2011
5. How to Make a Presentation (part 1)
6. Top 15 Systems Thinking Books
7. Cross-Functional Teams Don’t Come Free
8. The Best Used Books in My Library
9. How to Deal with Unknown Unknowns
10. Delegation Poker (Game Description)

There! I wrote another blog post about writing blog posts. And again I feel good at satisfying a whole bunch of intrinsic desires. See how easy it is?

Thank you all for reading.

You rock.