She walked across the room with visible nervous determination. Then she leaned close to me, as if what she were about to say were a secret she needed to keep between us… and asked quietly, “I don’t want to start another blog and fail again. How do I know if maybe I’m just not cut out for blogging?”
My first response was a desire to go into my “every single person on earth has a message and a purpose which a blog allows him or her to share” speech… or maybe ask her to define “failure”…
But the pain I could see in her eyes told me everything I needed to know. She WANTED to succeed, had passion for what she was doing, and she actually knew her own answer. She wanted desperately to get her blog working.
This lady wasn’t “failing” for the reasons she thought she was, but from lack of support and clear steps to follow. That’s a simple fix! (More about that in a future post.)
It got me thinking though… there ARE some clear ways to know if blogging is NOT right for you, and if you’re going to flame out.
So here’s how to know that you would fail spectacularly at blogging…
1. You Aren’t Passionate About Your Message
What’s your message? Who are you here to help? How do you help them?
What is it about what you’re doing that gets you FIRED UP and EXCITED to blog?
How are you changing the world?
If you haven’t found that yet… you aren’t passionate about your message!
And passion isn’t the only thing that matters, but it IS what will push you through all the challenging moments and the times you want to walk away, the early mornings or late nights you don’t “feel” like blogging.
2. You Hate Writing/Communicating with Other Human Beings
This one is kinda self explanatory, yes?
If you don’t enjoy writing or communicating with the other human beings on this planet… blogging probably isn’t where you should focus right now in your life.
You don’t need to be Shakespeare or Stephen King. You don’t even have to write (video blog!). But you DO need to enjoy communicating in some format and want to do it.
3. You Don’t Want to be Challenged to Grow
Building an online business around a blog WILL challenge you to grow.
You’ll have to learn new things, new skills, and new ways of being.
Are you up for that challenge? Do you want to grow and become the best version of yourself? Blogging will push you out of your comfort zone…
4. You Aren’t Willing to “Go Public” and Be Transparent
Speaking of comfort zone… publishing a blog puts you out there in the public space…
You need to be okay with critique, disagreement, criticism…
Be open to learning and be willing to take a deep breath and keep going when you get “fan mail” from people who just aren’t your audience and who don’t say nice things…
And it might be the same things about you that got you bullied in school, or judged harshly by someone close to you, are exactly what will help you succeed as a blogger… are you willing to take the risk and reveal those parts of yourself again?
5. You Really Aren’t Self-Motivated, Disciplined, or Organized
Yep. I’m serious.
Successful bloggers are self-motivated, disciplined, and organized.
The good news… if you’ve got 1-4 above handled, you can learn to motivate yourself and constantly work on your discipline and organization.
6. You Aren’t Willing to Create the Energy/Time Needed
Let me ask you a question: are you willing to work hard?
Need a moment to think? Fair enough… let me ask this a different way…
Are you willing to work hard to build a blog with an audience of loyal readers who allow you to generate an income online and create the life you really want?
It’s going to require you to make it a priority and create the energy and time needed.
7. You Hate Learning New Things (and Haven’t Embraced Google/YouTube as Your Best Friend)
Blogging’s got a learning curve. You’ll need to learn new things.
Will you choose to embrace it as an adventure, relying on Google and YouTube to assist you along the way?
8. You Haven’t Got an Ego
You’re going to need your ego. Along with a massive dose of healthy self-worth.
It takes ego to be brave enough, crazy enough, open enough to write a great blog!
Your ego will to DRIVE you to constant improvement and flat out pride that keeps you from accepting failure or giving up.
It’s gotta be balanced with 9 though.
9. You Haven’t Got Humility
Ego + Humility. Yep.
Don’t take yourself too seriously if you want to succeed as a blogger.
Can you laugh at yourself? Gracefully handle foolish moments?
Are you okay with growing publicly? With people seeing and following your own personal evolution?
10. You Don’t Genuinely Care About Delivering Value and Being of Service to Those Your Blog Would Help
You’ve got to care.
Your blog has to have value and be of service to your readers.
Without this, you will fail spectacularly as a blogger.
Your turn… how do you measure up against the “failure points” above? What other qualities do you see as required to be successful as a blogger? Share in the comments and let’s discuss!
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I guess I have what I need and then some, since I’ve been blogging since 2003 :D I can’t say it’s a successful blog, but I still enjoy it
Linda,
What would be your definition of a successful blog?
What a great example of using a story to hook readers and get them interested in reading the blog post! It certainly worked for me, even while I was aware of how you were using the story to grab my attention.
I enjoyed the list too, reminding me of the qualities and traits I need to make my blog a success.
Not taking it too seriously and really truly being passionate about what I’m blogging about and also really caring about people….I’ve done pretty good at blogging! ;-)
Thanks for this post. As always, your writing and message are spot on.
Kathy
Thanks for the tips. Blogging is all about descriptive and writing a good story that your viewers will like and comment.
That’s definitely an important piece of it! Thanks for reading and commenting, Marty.