Do you like to work out? Do you like to hit the gym and feel all swoll?

Of course, you do. Nothing feels better than walking out of the gym knowing you just put in work. Your spirit is awake, your mind feels clear, and your body…well, your body might be hurting a bit but at least it feels alive.

You love to go to the gym but for some reason, you just don’t get there as often as you would like.

Things come up. Life gets in the way. You don’t have time. These are the typical excuses people use when it comes to going to the gym. I know I lean on them quite heavily myself.

But dammit if feels good when you do.

Blogging is a lot like going to the gym. You sometimes have to force your lazy butt to do it but damn it feels good when you hit publish.

So, how can you re-energize your blogging efforts and start to get back on track with your blog?

1. Engage with your industry

The first thing you need to do is get back into your particular industry or niche. Start reading blogs that you used to follow or those that are leaders in your niche.

Find time on your commute or during your daily chores to listen to a few podcasts.

Nothing gets you more amped to start working on your gig than hearing about others crushing it with theirs. Find inspiration from your community and those that remain active in your niche.

2. Dedicate time to ONLY write

The blogging process can be a drain. People think blogging is just about writing. Those people would be asshats.

Blogging takes a significant amount of time, of which writing is one of the more trivial tasks.

Just to touch on some of the parts of the process, you have to research, write, find and edit graphics, edit, organize, edit again, and then market repeatedly all while you simultaneously plan your next post.

That’s the 30,000-foot look at what blogging is all about. If you want to learn more, check out this piece I did about the life of a blogger.

So, what I’ve found particularly effective lately is isolating the writing part. I will sit down and just write out the blog post with no expectations of editing, making it pretty, and publishing it. I’m simply writing.

By doing this, I have a clear perspective and focus on the task at hand and it suddenly becomes more attainable and much more enjoyable.

If you take one thing from this article, use this technique at least for a few weeks and see if it helps your blogging efforts.

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3. Write out a schedule for the next month

When you are working out, you follow a plan. You may do chest and biceps one day and then triceps and back two days later. You are following a plan of action and have everything scheduled.

You should do the same with your blog.

I can’t emphasize this one enough. Having a schedule of topics alleviates the stress of sitting down in front of your keyboard and saying, “what the hell am I going to write about now?”

Instead, spend just 30 minutes and write out your potential blog posts for the next month. If it helps, pick a topic you want to cover for the next month and then derive all of your posts from that.

For instance, let’s say you want to focus the next month on Twitter for your particular business. Given that scope, start to dig into the topic and figure out what you could talk about.

Drop those into particular dates on your publishing calendar and let them sit there. Come back at a later time and follow step number 2 above. If you post weekly, you will easily be able to come up with 4 blog post topics that will cover your entire next month of blogging.

If you approach it this way, you will have a number of articles written and in the bank, waiting for you to simple edit and make pretty at a later date.

4. Analyze your past performance and track your status going forward

Just like going to the gym, you need to analyze where you are today and track your efforts moving forward.

Take a measurement of your current platform and frequency of blog postings. Take a look at your posting history to see how you have been doing. If you are supposed to post weekly and only have 3 posts over the last 3 months, you are failing.

After looking at your current status, start to track how you do moving forward.

By tracking your stats and blog posts, you’ll quickly become accountable to yourself and will be more apt to continue to hit your marks.

If you stay consistent with going to the gym, the following week you are much more likely to “keep it going”. In a way you are establishing a habit. Do the same with your blogging.

5. Find an accountability partner or a mastermind group

And finally, if you can’t do it by yourself, then you need to find the support and encouragement from someone else.

When you go to the gym, do you have a workout buddy? You know the guy that awkwardly stands over your head as you try to concentrate on bench pressing? Yeah, that guy.

Well, you should have someone like that guy in your blogging world too.

You could find another blogger like you and see if they would like to form a relationship where you two serve as accountability partners. Each one helping the other stay on task. This ultimately benefits both people as they continue to move forward.

If you wanted to take it to a bigger level, find a mastermind and get engaged with a small group of individuals with similar goals and aspirations as you.

Just like finding a workout buddy for the gym who will encourage you and spot you, so also should you have individuals you lean on in your inner circles that will help you with your blogging. Doing it alone, just like working out, will probably result in longer times to realize your true potential.

Leverage the benefits of communication and collaboration with others to advance your personal goals and ambitions.