I’m the creator and host of The Happy Dance Podcast, but I haven’t consistently recorded an episode in months.

Each week when I don’t record an episode, I tell myself that it is because I have other things to do or that the podcast simply isn’t highest on my list of priorities for the week. And this would be fine, IF the maintaining a weekly podcast wasn’t something that was really important to me. But it is.

I pretty much hate unfinished projects. Either I’m working on something obsessively or I’ll leave it entirely alone. I either love you insanely, or I’m completely indifferent about you. The point is: Halfway having a podcast just doesn’t fit with my ideal vision of myself and it’s just not who I want to be.

Lately, I’ve been talking about different ways to be creative and how to develop habits that lead toward creating every single day for a happier, more productive, more satisfying life.

One way to develop a habit that is really important to us is to remove all obstacles that prevent us from beginning. A personal obstacle that prevents me from podcasting as regularly as I would like is the setup. I have my podcasting equipment in a purple Sacramento Kings backpack that sits in a wooden toy chest that I got for free from a prior teaching job. I have to dig out and untangle all of the cords are stored in this backpack, plug in my podcasting mic, plug in my earbuds (because my mic doesn’t work with my AirPods… I don’t THINK?), and make sure my dog’s collar is off so that it doesn’t create excess background noise when he joins me in my recording space to get water. It’s just a lot of annoyingness, IMO, and I tend to avoid aversive stimuli.

So, I’m planning to just cut all of that out. Moving forward, I’m going to create some of my own magic and luck by making starting easy. For a few episodes, I’m going to try recording using only my AirPods and my iPhone. Sure, the quality may not be as great as I’d like it to be, but quality is not my current focus. My current focus is to just DO THE WORK. I would to record and publish podcast episodes in the shortest amount of time possible, so that the entire experience begins to flow as easily for me as writing and publishing these blogs does. (When I’m writing these posts, it seriously feels like I just THINK and the words APPEAR in front of me. I’m a fast typer, but I also really enjoy the sound and the feel of my MacBook Air keyboard. I know, I’m weird. The point is, I’ve eliminated obstacles, and I actually take great pleasure in doing this work of writing daily blogs. I want it to feel like that with podcasting too.)

If you’d like to support me getting back into the regular swing of podcasting things and listen to a few episodes that may have the strange sounds of living in the background, be sure to check out The Happy Dance Podcast. I’ll be back at it soon!

Until next time, friends!

Saumirah