At Problogger yesterday, Darren Rowse wrote a post about mindsets that hold bloggers back from success. After naming a few, he gives the secret of many bloggers' success:

So what is it that sets some bloggers apart?

It's simple really: they get things done. They don't allow what's going on in their minds to distract them from actually blogging...

Then he asks for comments about how people overcome the paralyzing mindsets he had named. Here are my thoughts:

1. Know where to look for inspiration

Many bloggers think that they have to come up with their own original ideas for what to blog about -- otherwise, they'll be "me too" bloggers who aren't making real contribution, so no one will read them.

But is that true? If so, then this blog post isn't worth reading, because, even though I'm adding my own original response to Darren's post, the original idea that sparked the post was not mine. If you get any value from this post, that's proof that your posts don't have to start from your own ideas.

Sometimes you'll come up with your own ideas. But you'll get a lot more blogging done if you find some good sources of inspiration. Related blogs are a prime source.

2. Know how to use inspiration

If you check out my latest posts, you'll see how I do it -- I find something interesting, think of something to say about it, grab a quote from the source, and build my blog post around it.

This pattern has been very successful for me because by starting with a quote from someone else, I can immediately leapfrog over the "hmm, where should I begin" speedbump and get right into writing.

3. Use tools that make it easy

If you've been following what I've been doing recently, you'll understand why Darren's post resonated so much with me -- for the last few weeks, I've been blogging about 10 times as frequently as I used to (literally) because I'm using a new tool that makes it so much easier.

The tool is SEO Content Factory (I'm using it to write this post right now). Yes, it's my product, so I'll understand if you think I'm biased. But I got a really nice comment about it from Dane Morgan this morning. All I can say is "what he said."