Songdo, Korea
Imagine planting a seed in the ground.
One day after planting the seed, do you dig it up to see if the seed is a tree?
No, you do not.
Do you dig the seed out of the ground to see how the seed is growing?
No, you do not.
Do you dig the seed out of the ground to see why the seed may or may not be growing?
No, you do not.
Wise gardeners leave the seed be then get busy with allowing their gardening skills and the natural elements to foster long-term growth. Eventually, the seed becomes a tree.
Professional bloggers play the role of wise gardeners.
Buying their domain and hosting sets the process into motion. Pros purchased the seed.
Future full time bloggers write and publish their first blog post to plant the seed. Amateurs – who will go pro – never dig up that seed. I mean that. Amateurs who will go full time never dig up the seed because it needs to grow.
Pros let the seed be but busy themselves with publishing detailed, long form, targeted content to drive quality blog traffic. Pros also build strong relationships with readers and fellow bloggers in their niche. Frame the creating and connecting to a gardener tending to the seed with ample watering, weeding around the seed-home and doing whatever gardeners do to skillfully cultivate a lush, green garden.
Full time bloggers allow time to be the natural sun, nurturing soil and rainfall. No one can rush time. Time is just time. Patiently creating and connecting and trusting in the process instill a long term approach to blogging. Gardeners know the drill; wait, patiently, to let the natural elements create organic seed growth.
Perhaps the future pro blogger spots 4 visitors one day. The gardener sees the first tiny shoot.
The pro spies 20 visitors the following week. The gardener sees the first stalk.
The pro creates blogging courses and blogging eBooks. The gardener stakes the growing stalk.
The pro sells their first blogging course 6 months into creating and connecting patiently. The gardener observes the first fruit sprouting.
Eventually, after a sustained period of creating and connecting, the amateur who thought, felt and acted like a pro becomes a professional blogger. Eventually, after a sustained period of tending to the tree, the seed becomes a large, fruit-bearing tree.
What Separates Future Pros from Everyone Else?
Pros never dig up the seed.
Pros tend to the seed and patiently allow the time-nature-elements to form a tree out of the seed.
Example of Digging Up the Seed
Imagine buying your domain and hosting today.
After 4 blogging hours you check blogging stats; you wrote and published the first post. Traffic = 0.
Panicked, you analyze what you’re doing wrong. Why did no one show up?
Fretting, you dig up the seed and begin researching different niches.
Or maybe you have owned your domain and hosting for 2 years but spent roughly 250 hours blogging during the 2 year stretch. You blogged for one month – for your first stretch – but at day’s end during the month, you checked stats, panicked and mistakenly judged your entire blogging campaign on the 24 hour stats day, after day, after day, for the 30 period. Every panicked day of 24 hour stat checking, worrying and framing yourself as a blogging failure equates to:
- digging up the seed
- placing the seed on sun baked pavement
- observing the seed die
The seed being dead, you attempt to plant a new seed tomorrow. But at the 24 hour interval you panic after checking your daily metrics. Judging yourself to be a blogging failure, you dig up the seed again, observe the seed die, then continue with the next blogging cycle.
Disgusted, you quit blogging for 6 months until repeating the same daily cycle for a month. Disgusted, you quit blogging for 6 months until the 2 year blogging anniversary.
How do you change the cycle to lay the foundation for your professional blogging career?
Keep the Seed in the Ground
Pros love the blogging process of creating and connecting to the point of checking statistics infrequently.
Full time bloggers take this attitude: the blogging process takes care of the outcomes.
When you do not panic over outcomes you never dig up the seed for its premature death.
Pros see the tree in the future, not an obsession with the day to day status updates of an underground seed that obviously needs year’s worth of growth before evolving into a tree.
Keep the seed in the ground.
Check status updates here and there.
Frame stat-checking as a quick way to gauge your direction. What seems to be working? Keep doing that. What seems to not work? Analyze for a few moments. Keep anything valuable or let it all go.
Imagine this analogy.
Picture yourself speeding down the highway at 75 MPH. Checking a mile marker for a few seconds indicates where you seem to be on the journey.
Pro bloggers spend a few minutes checking stats every 2-3 weeks or perhaps monthly to note their apparent location. Does all seem to be growing? Yes? Stop checking stats and get back to engaging in the blogging process. Do metrics appear to be meager? Spend 5-10 minutes analyzing your blogging activities and your overall vibe concerning your blog. Keep what feels fun and seems beneficial; give more time, energy and work to that. Let go all else. Stop checking stats and return to creating and connecting.
One Easy Way to Guarantee Long Term Growth (to Resist the Temptation to Dig Up the Seed)
Invest money in professional blogger:
- online courses
- eBooks
- coaching
to:
- learn what works
- do what works
- increase your metrics steadily
- go pro
Far and away, full time bloggers seem to sprint ahead of most for investing money in professional coaching. Success finds them – and they never dig up the seed – because they only follow a pro blogger system and gradually obtain pro blogger results.
When you only do what works…..it works.
Conclusion
I hope you enjoyed my seed analogy.
Think it through to hop on the blogging straight and narrow toward your full time blogging career.
