Naples Island Long Beach California USA
Why do you blog?
What reason motivates you?
I scanned one of my blogging eBooks for sale to find a blog post idea. Chapter one of my beginner blogger mistakes eBook highlights one calamitous error: new bloggers typically have no clue in hell why they blog.
Some beginners blog to make money online. Perhaps a few suffer from working soul-sucking jobs. All want out now!
Blogging appears to be a cool way to pay the bills. Goodness knows that ample page 1 results on Google and YouTube stress the sugary sweet benefits of building a full time income earning blog.
Reality bites all deluded newbie bloggers in the ass sooner than later.
Maybe those promising page 1 videos on YouTube appeared to make blogging look super duper easy.
The truth is a wee bit different.
Frustrated as hell at the not too easy nature of blogging and being sold a false bill of goods, most beginner bloggers quit. Hey; this ain’t what they signed up for!
There’s that lot of lost blogging souls who assumed blogging to be an ATM fix. Do some work. Make some money for that work. Pay bills. Boost savings. Leave your job based on blogging proceeds from the first 3-6 months of your blogging career.
Other beginner bloggers have no idea in Hades – noted above – why they blog. I see this “iffy” crowd as being subject to peer pressure.
People tell these folks to blog because it sounds like a way to earn freedom.
But do the aspiring bloggers deeply desire freedom? Do the newbies thirst for success? Do these beginners hunger to be free from time and location by being truly helpful for a highly targeted reader?
Almost always, the answers to each question are: “Hell no.”
Why Ask Why You Blog?
Like the old school beer commercial, why ask why?
Unless you harbor some pulsating reason why to blog tied to:
- fun
- freedom
- the love of serving people with content
you will struggle, fail and quit fast.
I have seen this process play out during my 18 year blogging career.
Lost newbies dive into blogging with no fun, freeing, loving driver to serve. All want money fast or cling to no overpowering reason why they blog.
Every single one quits quickly.
You will quit fast – at the slightest resistance – until you blog mainly for fun, freedom and service.
If you really want to help people you will do the uncomfortable work necessary to go pro.
Otherwise, you quit.
This is why you need to ask yourself why you blog. Get hyper clear on that reason. Focus on intangibles. Doing it to be free and to have fun helping people with content knives through the inevitable resistance facing all bloggers.
I never could blog for 18 years unless I:
- loved helping bloggers by writing detailed blogging tips
- enjoyed being free from time and location as a digital nomad
Obstacles arose during my blogging journey.
My love of serving and circling the globe became stronger than fears triggered as I faced obstacles.
I did the scary stuff required to conquer obstacles in order to thrive.
That’s it.
If you want to succeed you overcome:
- obstacles
- resistance
- mental blocks
until you succeed.
Why Is this Mistake Disastrous?
Seriously.
This error is tragic if you peruse it at scale.
I cannot estimate the specific percentage of new bloggers who struggle like hell because they have no clear, high energy reason for blogging.
But most do err in this regard.
The disaster and seeming tragedy is this: beginner bloggers prevent themselves from doing the work to succeed because they lack the proper motivator to do the work.
Look closely at someone who clearly has no reason in mind to value their health. This depressed lot lacks the inner motivation to:
- exercise
- eat moderately (with some fasting involved)
- practice emotional hygiene through meditating
Each individual appears to live a life filled with obstacles preventing them from exercising, eating moderately and fasting and meditating.
The tragedy is that the depressed individual makes the obstacles within the mind due to their lack of inner motivators which manifests in the external world.
They are doing it to themselves but in a highly unconscious state.
If any one sat down to choose a high energy motivator to be healthy, the resistance would lessen and they would do the sometimes uncomfortable but always health promoting:
- exercising
- eating moderately and fasting
- meditating
What Is the Solution?
Lock yourself in a quiet room.
Ask yourself: Why do I blog?
List the reasons.
Be honest with yourself.
The only way to do this for a long time – facing, feeling and dissolving obstacles along the way – is to blog mainly for fun, freedom and the love of helping people.
Those pretty much must be the reasons or you will quit after facing a few stout obstacles.
Almost no beginner blogger understands the importance of mind training.
Everyone wants to get to work mindlessly it seems.
I established some mental clarity during my beginner blogging days.
But I struggled.
Why?
I mostly blogged for money.
I tried to GET money from each post versus GIVING 3-5 hours to:
- research
- write
- edit
- publish
a highly-detailed, practical guide solving a pressing problem in my prior niche with each post.
Strike that.
I covered multiple niches during my newbie blogger days, a big no-no. A jack of all trades masters none. Pros do one thing to do it well. The world trusts specialists not generalists. No one trusts a butcher who delivers Chinese food, runs a mail service and serves as a janitor for hire, all businesses originating from the butcher shop.
Why would I trust a blogger covering 5 niches when hundreds of bloggers specialize in only one of those niches, covering the topic inside-out, upside-down, backwards and forwards?
I chose multiple niches because I tried to make the most money through blogging during those confusing beginner days.
Of course I struggled like hell. My content was thin, all over the place, nobody stuck around for long, my bounce rate skyrocketed and the whole thing felt horribly disheartening.
Getting clear on why I blogged changed everything.
I spent some time in silence. I chose to blog mainly to help people and to be free from time and location as a full-time blogger.
Changing my reason why inspired me to give more time and energy to publishing truly helpful content. That detailed, targeted content covering a single niche drove increased organic traffic and eventual blogging income.
I had to change my reason why to reach that point.
Conclusion
Do the inner work.
Blogging involves performing mental gymnastics consistently.
Blog mainly for fun, freedom and the love of helping people as a beginner.
Changing motivators instantly improves the quality, depth and staying power of your work.
Success gradually follows but only because you chose a high-energy reason to blog.
