Blogging Teaches Important Life Lessons
Are you a blogger? If yes, why did you start to blog? Have you achieved your blogging goals?
I started blogging in the spring of 2009, and for nearly a year, I didn’t publicize it because I wanted to see if it was something that I would stick with. People found the blog anyway. I am an introvert so having a blog was a way of expressing myself. I had also been thinking about the notion of an invisible mentor for 18 months, and I believed it was time to bring it to life. An invisible mentor is a unique leader you can learn from by observing him or her from a distance. This means that someone could be your mentor without their knowledge, isn’t that great? Today, this is easier than ever because of advances in technology – you can find lots of information about people who you want to emulate. When Confucius met someone, he emulated their good qualities and checked himself for the not-so-good ones.
Starting The Invisible Mentor Blog
Before I started blogging, I followed many A-List Bloggers, and I would save any information that I could use when I started my blog. Chris Brogan’s blog posts were very helpful, and I still remember, when I created my blog, I went into the folder to make sure that I was following his advice. I started off with a free theme and over time I graduated to paid ones when I realized that I was serious about blogging.
My blog evolved as my thinking about The Invisible Mentor changed. What I also noticed, was that some of the blogs I once enjoyed, I no longer enjoyed, and that is a part of life. You have friends, and as you both grow, you may no longer have anything in common, so you come to a decision point, do you keep the friendship, or do you part ways? Only you can decide. I unsubscribed from many blogs and subscribed to new ones.
Blogging Can Be Thankless
Blogging can be very thankless, because readers do not always let you know when you are doing a good job, or not so good job. There are times when I feel like I am whistling in the dark, and wonder if I should be investing the time, when I suddenly get a nice email from someone telling me how much they appreciate what I am doing. People have told me that they keep track of me through my blog posts, and still others have told me that they rely on me for book recommendations. Just yesterday, I received an email from someone letting me know that she is using some of my suggestions for getting the most from your reading. I would like to think that that’s a success. People also leave me messages using the SpeakPipe plugin on my blog. I turned off my comments about a year now because people do not comment on my blog, they send me emails, leave me a message or tell me things personally.
When was the last time you told someone you are grateful for the work they do?
This is also a reminder to self. I have to thank Sarah Arrow for the 30 Day Blogging Challenge community. What I learned from the Challenge, has enabled me to become a better blogger. Thank you Sarah!
Be Careful Who You Listen To
There is a lot of noise out there, and there are so many people advising you on how to get more traffic to your blog, how to create digital products to sell, how to generate money from your blog, and it goes on and on. But if you are not careful, some of the advice may do more harm than good. Some of the advice is from one-hit wonders, or even from people who haven’t done what they are advising you to do. I had to shut the noise off because of the conflicting advice, and I unsubscribed from many blogs because I could no longer think for myself. In life, when people give you advice, you weigh the information, then make your own decision. That’s the way you should approach blogging.
I enjoy blogging. I have not been able to monetize it yet, but that’s because I haven’t taken the time to create a product to sell there. You can’t sell if you do not have anything to sell. I have been working on The Invisible Mentor System, and have finalized the model, and now have to productize it. Besides enjoying blogging, the act allows me to clarify my thoughts, and something that gives me great joy is writing about new information that I learned, so others may benefit as well.
It’s possible to become an A-List blogger, I am not there yet, but I wanted to remind you, that to become great, you have to learn continuously to improve your craft. If you examine the lives of the most successful people, you will discover a trait that they have is that they are lifelong learners. Blogging changes as new technologies are introduced, and it’s important to pay attention to influencers to learn about what’s new.
Blogging teaches us life lessons, and life lessons can teach us how to become better bloggers.
Get Started Here – I want to help you get started on your learning journey. Read The Invisible Mentor 2015 Reading Challenge, then Join the Facebook Group for the Reading Challenge today, connecting the ideas from the books you read!
In the meantime, THANK YOU for your time… Thank you for sharing this post, and thank you for connecting with me on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest! What was your biggest takeaway from today?
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