South Island New Zealand
Be highly ambitious about your workload but highly conservative about your goals.
Whooooaaaa…..wait a minute. Do you need to re-read that one?
Be highly ambitious about your workload but highly conservative about your goals.
I apologize for the mental blogging drive-by. The world teaches you to be highly ambitious about your goals but highly conservative about your workload. This is a nice way of saying that the world demands you to take as many shortcuts as possible to maybe…..just maybe….get something for nothing.
I am ambitious about creating content. But my content goals are incredibly modest to the point of removing expectations at times. I apologize in advance for kicking you between the thoughts yet what else can I share? This is how I do things at Blogging From Paradise Dot Com. I go heavy on the work and light on my expectations.
Standing out in any blogging niche feels highly uncomfortable first because you decide to step away from how the blogging herd:
- thinks
- feels
- behaves
You and I seem bombarded by goals, results, outcomes and the like. Big numbers tempt you. Greed runs this place. Sooner than later, this becomes apparent. Ya gotta get something here as frequently as possible or run the risk of losing relevance.
What do I mean by that?
Peep mainstream blogging guidance. Practical tips seem prevalent enough. But the getting mechanism is crazy strong. Money. Traffic. Outcomes. Bloggers focus heavily on outcomes laced with a strong psychological attachment to getting. What about the blogging process of *giving* content? Most bloggers – intentionally or unconsciously – advise how following 5 simple steps leads to the big bucks, or the pro blogging career.
Being conditioned to give a little and expect a lot screws up your mind. You want something for nothing. Or you want a lot for next to nothing. I did not grow up immune to this tendency, mind you. Nor did blogging spare me the rod. I experienced stretches of desiring heady outcomes by putting in as little blogging work as humanly possible.
I became ambitious about my goals but highly conservative about my work.
What happened?
Since I gave only a little I got only a little. Getting only a little destroyed me because my results fell pitifully short of my big, hairy, ambitious goals. I lived in a f*cking delusional state just like most bloggers and human beings, for that matter.
Look at any movie. Fools believe that you can live a dream life in 120 minutes. 10, 20 or 30 years of diligent, disciplined mastery appear to pass in seconds. Everyone sees the dream lives experienced by inspirational figures but never considers the 10 or 20 or 30 years of disciplined mastery that led to all sugary sweet spoils.
But if you reverse the insane thinking of the world by taking this post to heart you will distance yourself from almost every blogger.
What to Do
Mentally, get emotionally lost in creating practical content for your perfect reader. Be ambitious about this process. Love helping people with content.
Mentally, train yourself to gradually dissolve psychological attachments to:
- traffic outcomes
- money outcomes
or any goal associated with blogging.
Be conservative about blogging goals if you pine for metrics. Let numbers go. Numbers do not elicit lasting happiness. Helping people with content feels best. Creating content is the best feeling associated with blogging.
Traffic, money or any blogging goal feels good for about 5-10 seconds after reaching arbitrary metrics. But after 5-10 seconds the good feeling disappears into thin air. What are you left with after the vanishing act? Emptiness. Lack of fulfillment. Hollowness.
Why the hell would you actually believe that a number could elicit lasting happiness?
