Pudsey England
No you do not.
Publishing targeted, long form content consistently is enough. Long form content earns reader trust. Trusting readers build organic traffic and blogging income.
But succeeding is nothing less.
Reread the word “consistently”.
What does it mean? No one can predict specific timelines for successful blogging but the minimum consistency for pretty much everyone is in terms of years.
Bloggers screw up in this regard. Most work really hard to force organic traffic and blogging income. Everything blows up in their face.
Why?
None of these bloggers publish targeted, long form content consistently. I’m talking for years. I mean confidently publishing practical content for what the world deems quite a long stretch of time.
Do you really believe that hard work brings success?
I vividly recall seeing water buffalo plow the fields during my trips to Vietnam. Did each behemoth succeed? Did the massive beasts make tons of money?
Beasts of burden work hard.
People need to work differently. Human beings learn nuances. Skills demand refinement not blunt force.
Yet bloggers turn around and expect to make a fortune doing something similar to a water buffalo. Force. Strain. Strive. Push. Manipulate. Work harder. Stay up later. Get up earlier. Outwork the competition. Get sick. Sacrifice. Pat yourself on the back for working 18 hour days. Be admired by fools for working 18 hour days.
Burnout and quitting almost always follow. Outliers experience stressed worldly success but feel openly terrified to lose everything. What a picnic, eh?
What Is the Answer?
Blogging calmly is the answer. Blogging with a quiet sense of confidence is the answer.
Develop posture. Take your time. Do a thorough job with each post by maintaining peace of mind backed by deep trust in yourself. Trust the blogging process.
Publish content consistently. Consider publishing one long form post weekly for years. Relax. Frame blogging to be a leisurely marathon.
This is where consistency factors in. Most bloggers blow their wads by working hard to burn out fast. Quitting destroys any sense of consistency. Failure follows.
Wise bloggers do ordinary things for an extraordinary length of time.
I came across this concept recently. A social media pro shared this talisman of wisdom. Do ordinary things for an extraordinary length of time.
How does that look for bloggers?
Sit down to write and publish a 1200 word, targeted, practical blog post. I would call that doing something fairly ordinary. Anyone can do a little research and write one blog post because investing 2-3 hours to follow simple tasks is easy enough to do.
But then you need to do that ordinary thing for an extraordinary length of time. Problems arise in a world of change. Publishing weekly posts for 3 weeks seems easy enough. But week 4 slapped you upside your head with writer’s block. Your internet crashed. You also noticed only 2-3 daily visitors despite publishing long-form content diligently for the prior 3 weeks.
Do you see why succeeding demands you to put in an extraordinary stretch of time as the world judges it? Almost every blogger quits on publishing a post for week 4 because the writer’s block, a temporary internet outrage and psychological attachment to statistics appears to destroy their resolve. This is ordinary in the blog-o-sphere. Ordinary bloggers make typical excuses. Few get the job done; few devote an extraordinary length of time to blogging.
The few bloggers left become part of two camps: either work really hard to force out a crap piece of content to satiate a posting schedule or confidently, calmly and mindfully sit with your fears to eventually write a truly helpful piece of content from a relaxed state of mind.
The latter crowd eventually goes pro.
They get it.
Do ordinary things for an extraordinary length of time.
The latter crowd doesn’t miss a week; these future pros typically hit 52 weeks per year. Some publish 100’s of posts annually.
Why?
Successful bloggers or future successful bloggers exude confidence enough to stretch their timelines into years.
Confident bloggers do not work hard because none forces, strains or strives. Forcing things leads to burnout and quitting.
Pros – or future pros – know why they blog. Most link blogging to some form of:
- fun
- freedom
- love of service
to get through inevitable blogging obstacles.
Abundant-minded bloggers do the work.
But it shouldn’t be hard work.
You have a mind.
Use it.
Conclusion
No blogger needs to work hard to succeed.
Publishing helpful content consistently is enough.
