Repetition

It takes hearing things multiple times before something sinks in. Often, I have to repeat myself dozens of times in slightly different ways before somebody actually listens to the thing I said a hundred times before.

You might notice that I tend to repeat myself on this blog, and say the same things over and over again. There’s a couple of reasons for that:

1. This blog is stream of consciousness and deals with things I’m witnessing or dealing with at the moment, so things tend to repeat themselves as they present with myself or my clients.
2. People don’t read this blog every day, so often somebody is reading these words for the first time, even if I post about it every day for a week.
3. People need to hear things repeated over and over again before it sticks.
4. No matter how often you talk, there is always somebody coming to find you for the first time.
5. People need to keep hearing something repeatedly to reinforce their own actions.

Sometimes people roll their eyes when I stay on the same theme over and over, but it happens less often then you think. More often then not people thank me for repeating myself because they had either forgotten and needed a reminder or needed to reinforce their belief in themselves and their actions.

I don’t worry much about repeating myself because over the years my audience has only said nice things about my work when I do, or ignored it if they didn’t need it at that moment. Yet, people worry about repeating themselves all the time, and spend hours trying to come up with original ideas. Yes, those original ideas are important, but it’s okay to fall back on old favorites when you don’t have anything new to say.

Usually, it’s something people need to hear again anyway. If you know something has been successful, then you know it will be successful again, and there’s no shame in taking the easy win some days.