Not many people have long-term interest in blogging.
Over the years I’ve found that the #1 reason most bloggers quit at some point is they just don’t like writing.
The #2 reason is that their initial expectations for success, however they define it, are way to high and way to short-term.
And it’s not just with personal bloggers. It’s with business owners, managers and marketers. It’s easy to look at the business blogging landscape and see success stories. But usually we only look at the surface.
Think about a business blog you admire…
Have you ever taken the time to look back in their archives to see how long they’ve been blogging? Usually it’s at least 5 years and these days there is a good chance that it’s been 10+ years.
And it’s honestly the same story with social media success stories. Many of the influencers or people and brands with a lot of followers have been doing it for 3-5 and even many more years. YouTube stars or whatever.
But for some reason when we think about starting from scratch with a blog or social media strategy or YouTube channel or podcast we think we can reach a high level with a year or even a few months.
Let’s go over some of the mindset traits of successful bloggers so you can determine if it’s the right fit for what you’re looking to do…
Long-Term Focus
This was the focus on the intro, but it’s worth pointing out again because it’s very important. Obviously you can get into blogging, or anything, with a long-term outlook and still decide at any point that it’s not a good fit. It’s okay to change your mind.
But if you can determine now that blogging isn’t a good fit for you then it might be best to work on alternatives. For example, if you enjoy writing or try blogging and find that you like it then there is a good chance that you’ll stick with it for the long-term.
We all have things that we would do for little or no money. We’re intrinsically motivated to do them. For ourselves. Because there is some kind of internal reward for doing it.
That’s what you’re looking for with blogging. If you enjoy writing or taking down your thoughts or if you find that you’re good at it you’ll find the kind of rewards that will keep you doing it for the long-term.
This will allow you the best odds of seeing success in terms of traffic, recognition and the like.
Creation Mindset
Tiger Woods is perhaps the best golfer of all time. When he talks about how he works on his game he often uses the word “reps”. In Tiger-speak, this means working on specific aspects of his games a number of times.
Tiger has a creation mindset when it comes to golf. Or, said another way, he focus on quantity when it comes to his game. Obviously there is also a quality aspect, but Tiger has realized that quantity is the best path to quality.
Not many of us are naturally gifted at anything. It’s not likely that Tiger Woods hit his first golf shot extremely well because of natural talents. He may have hit it well by chance. It may have sparked intrigue in his mind. But after that he focused on building the type of talent required to become the best player in the world.
With blogging, as with most things in life, you need to focus on creation. Instead of focusing on getting a certain number of visitors each year, focus on creating a certain number of posts.
If you take care of what you control, you give yourself the best odds to see the results you want, like traffic. It’s not guaranteed, but too many bloggers focus on traffic and that often leads them to creating too few posts, which doesn’t result in learning what works and what doesn’t and they end up with no traffic.
Experimental
It’s interesting to read about music artists. Especially bands. They would often come together and what they would do is figure out what their common interests were. They would find those common interests and often they would start to create music that was kind of covering those interests.
But after that they would start to get away from being copycats and cover bands. They would start to experiment to find their own sound. One that was influenced by their heroes or those they admired, but specifically a sound that was different.
It’s an important process for most of us in life. We imitate those we admire, but we also work to find our own niche. That comes from experimentation. Trying new things until we find a formula that seems to work.
The most successful bloggers and business bloggers go through this process. They try a number of different things. They imitate and innovate until they find something that seems to work. Then they go all in.
Once they go all in they continue doing that maybe 80-90% of the time. And they leave the other 10-20% for continued experimentation. Because you never know when the market will change.
Final Thoughts
Blogging isn’t for everybody. I encourage you to get into blogging. To see if it’s something you are intrinsically motivated to do. And it’s okay if you do think it’s a good fit, but later decide that it isn’t. I hope however, that you don’t go into blogging with the wrong mindset and with askew expectations. Because that can leave a bad taste in your mouth when it comes to a great outlet for expression, connection and growth.