I sat down to write a simple blog post about the lessons I've learned from my thesis. I thought it would be something straightforward – here's what I discovered working with a small bakery, here are the practical takeaways. 

Three hours later, I had two completely different drafts and a whole new understanding of what I was actually trying to say.

Starting with the "obvious" approach

My initial plan felt logical enough. I'd write about the four-stage content strategy approach I'd developed for BounceBake, walk through each stage with examples, and wrap up with some practical advice. A neat package of academic learning meets real-world application.

But as I started writing about the stages, something kept nagging at me. The approach was useful, sure, but it wasn't the real story. I was burying the lead.

The moment everything shifted

I was midway through explaining content modelling when I stopped and reread what I'd written. It was accurate, thorough, and... kind of boring. Like reading a case study instead of learning from someone's actual experience.

That's when a different truth surfaced: the biggest insight from my thesis wasn't the four-stage approach itself – it was the realisation that I'd been chasing the wrong thing entirely. I'd started this project wanting to create the "perfect" content strategy for small businesses. But what I'd actually learnt was that perfect strategies don't exist, and that's exactly the point.

Suddenly, I had two stories to tell instead of one.

Reframing the real insight

This is where reflection-in-action got interesting. I wasn't just reorganising content anymore – I was discovering what I actually wanted to say.

The first story became about the myth of perfect content strategy. About how reality has a way of humbling your textbook approaches. About slowly realising that "good enough and useful" beats "comprehensive and unused" every time.

The second story became about the practical framework that emerged from that humbling realisations – positioned as a starting point, not a perfect solution.

Two posts instead of one. A complete reframe of my message.

Wrestling with academic expectations

Here's where I hit my biggest moment of doubt. Was splitting this into two posts just me avoiding the hard work of synthesising a longer post? Was I overthinking something that could have been simpler?

But the more I sat with it, the more I realised the split wasn't a failure of focus – it was the point. The very act of trying to force everything into one tidy post was exactly the kind of "perfect" thinking that I wanted to move away from. So, I decided to split the posts. 

What the writing process taught me

Reflection-in-action revealed something I couldn't have planned: the form of my content needed to match its message. Writing about flexible, iterative approaches in a rigid, comprehensive format would have been fundamentally dishonest.

The first post became my permission to challenge the myth of perfection. The second became my practical contribution to helping people start anyway. Both were necessary, but neither could do the work of the other.

What started as "here are my thesis learnings" became "here's what I learned about learning." The approach was still there, but it was wrapped in something more honest – the admission that I'd been wrong about what good strategy looks like.

This process reminded me that reflection-in-action isn't just about adjusting your approach when things go wrong. Sometimes it's also about recognising when things are going right, albeit in an unexpected direction.

This post demonstrates reflection-in-action, a concept that emphasises learning and adjusting while doing, especially when something unexpected or unclear comes up. I learnt about this from my lecturer Jutta Pauschenwein during the Master’s programme in content strategy at the FH Joanneum. Read her blog post about being a reflective practitioner for more, or check out how my classmates Susanna and Roman have applied reflection-in-action in their work.