Santa Monica California
When did you last publish a blog post?
Has it been weeks?
Has it been months?
Pressure may be building in your mind.
How many readers did you lose? How many people unsubscribed from your email list?
Did your readers forget you?
Did fellow blogging buddies forget you?
Fears mount.
Pressure becomes even more heavy.
The weight of the blogging world presses down on your tiny shoulders.
What should you do when the pressure of publishing new content feels too great?
Never force a post.
Walk your own race.
Notice I said “walk”.
I did not tell you to run. I did not tell you to sprint. Perhaps you crawl. Maybe you jog. I have no idea. I am not in your head. I do not know where you’re at blogging-wise.
Do you feel guided to write a blog post today? If so then do it. But maybe taking off a few days to collect your thoughts is the next practical step for you.
At any rate, relax. Do not publish under pressure. You will hate the results. I mean that.
Be With These Thoughts
After reading this post some thoughts may arise in your mind:
- “Crap I am behind this guy.”
- “Good I am ahead of this guy.”
- “This guy makes me look lazy.”
- “This guy makes me think I should blog more often.”
- “I am blogging at my required pace right now.”
Kudos to those whose thoughts resonate with the last bullet point.
You get the spirit of this post.
Feeling pressured to post points you in the wrong direction. Pressure is fear. Fear is force. Force negates.
Negating means doing a lot of hard work for meager results. You force out a blog post because you felt pressured to do it. A few people show up to read the forced content. No one else reads the forced post. The post dies for good, wallowing in the cyber grave yard with millions of dead relatives published under pressure.
Why?
Force negates.
Publishing under pressure usually results in low quality content. Poor content does not generate organic traffic and blogging income. Most readers bounce from low quality posts. A few read the post before leaving for good.
How do you solve the pressure problem?
Find your own pace.
Walk your own race.
Relax.
Publish weekly. Or publish every two weeks.
Find your flow. Stay in your lane.
Let blog post ideas flow to you.
Publish within the reasonable time frame of one to two weeks.
Blogs serve as news portals. Publishing one post per month seems to be pushing it to me. Most people do not check the news monthly. Some follow the news daily. Others check in less frequently. Few humans follow the news twelve times each year.
Publishing helpful content every one to two weeks keeps readers informed with timely guidance.
Focus on Quality Over Quantity
One quality blog post drives organic traffic for years.
I recently mentioned how one Blogging From Paradise post ranked at position one or position two on Google since 2014 to now.
I did not force the post out under pressure. I took my time to publish a quality blog post.
Publish only quality content. Let go of the idea that you need to publish a high quantity of content to succeed. Quality content beats a heavy volume of average content based on content performance.
Low quality content dies quickly. Nobody sees these posts after a few days because poor content has no organic reach. After a few folks check it out no one sees it again.
Posting under pressure spawns low quality content. Fear pushes you to put out average – or substandard – content just to increase the quantity of posts on your blog.
Posting with quality in mind influences you to do a thorough job. Blogging with confidence inspires you to publish high quality content to be truly helpful for readers. Detailed blog posts generate heavy organic traffic over years. Do the job right the first time to maximize organic traffic. Stop forcing content. Set aside time to do a thorough job. Build content-assets that work for you around the clock.
Resist the Urge to Compare Yourself to Bloggers
Everyone blogs at their own pace.
Some publish blog posts daily.
Others publish weekly posts.
Some bloggers write consistently to become prolific.
Other bloggers struggle to publish content because this crowd rarely practices writing.
Respect your blogging journey.
Comparing yourself to other bloggers – especially the successful lot – creates pressure. Never measure their results by your work. Do not compare your workload to their workload. Do you have any idea how much work top pros put in before going full-time? Did you work as much *at the right things*?
Bloggers put pressure on themselves to be as prolific as pros but follow no specific system to be prolific. Winging it with a scattershot approach creates unrealistic ambition.
Instead of pressuring yourself to blog like a pro how about learning from a professional blogger? Learn how to think like a pro blogger even though you are currently an amateur blogger. Follow guidance from pros on what to do daily in order to go full-time. Ask pros what simple system you should follow.
Before being like a pro:
- learn exclusively from pro bloggers
- ask pros to point out your mistakes and offer corrections for your errors
- gradually think, feel and act like full-time bloggers
Admittedly, following these processes requires a complete thought reversal for most bloggers. Reversing your thinking radically feels uncomfortable. Fears need to be addressed to blog with the posture of successful bloggers.
Something neat happens if you follow pro blogger advice consistently. Instead of pressuring yourself to be like them you naturally become like pro bloggers. Pressure dissolves because you organically become prolific and drive quality blog traffic.
Conclusion
Relax.
Pressure comes from within your mind not the external world.
Walk at your blogging pace.
Respect your journey.
Create quality blog content in a pressure-free environment.
Remove the blogging vice-grip to do your best work.
