This is a guest post by Ryan Biddulph. He shares smart blogging tips at Blogging From Paradise.
I spoke to one of my friends the other day.
He is quite well-known in the world.
Being the first out college basketball student-athlete, my friend has also become a professional baller who plays overseas.
The old me would have likely never bonded with him because I shrunk down in fear any time someone of renown reached out to me. How could I ever envision myself as being on their level? Why did I bother to think the individual would want to connect with little old me? Of course, blogging and life, in general, become painfully difficult if you shrink down into miserable comfort versus leveling up into freeing discomfort.
Success sits outside of your blogging comfort zone. Influential bloggers who promote you, endorse you, buy your offerings and hire you to sit outside of your comfort zone, too. How can you succeed if you scramble back to failure the moment you have the opportunity to level up?
Level up!
Move into higher blogging circles. Network with professional bloggers. Comment genuinely on top blogs related to your niche. Learn from pros. Gain exposure in front of their prospering communities. Leveling up gives you access to serious bloggers and readers who do not make excuses usually made in lower circles, said lower circles being the realm of bloggers who shrink down.
I have joined a few communities over the years I had no business joining. But shrinking down immediately forced me to face my mistake in the form of red flags popping up in these groups. Nobody seemed to have money to buy my eBooks or courses. Even more telling, strangers reached out to me asking for money. Others demanded that I help them for free via various favors. I quickly left these lower blogging circles because shrinking down delays greater success from flowing your way.
Leaving these circles made space for me to level up. I began guest posting on top blogging tips blogs in my niche. I also promoted respected, professional bloggers through:
- my blog
- guest posts
because blogging birds of a feather need to flock together. Success finds bloggers who hobnob in successful blogging circles. But moving into successful blogging circles demands that you level up, even if doing so feels highly uncomfortable at first.
Nerves ate away at me the moment I considered guest posting for a respected blogging tips blogger. He lobbed an invite my way to level up, unlike any opportunity I had received up until that point. Sure enough, my fears screamed at my consciousness to shrink down from the prospering opportunity. I attempted to reason why he would:
- reject my guest posts
- criticize my guest posts
- tell me how inviting me to guest post was a waste of time after he scanned my first guest post
I am not kidding; each one of these thoughts and feelings passed through my mind. But I decided to level up by allowing my love for freedom to guide me through the minefield of fears surfacing in my mind. Before he sold the blog 5 years later I wrote and published 1200 plus guest posts on his blog.
Guest posting on the blog increased my exposure, fortified friendships with influential bloggers, and helped my blog perform better on Google through the high domain authority backlinks I scored on the website. I received these sugary sweet benefits only by choosing to level up versus shrinking down from opportunities. Nothing would have changed if I decided to play small. I played big by making freedom more important to me than ducking an opportunity based on my fears.
Play big. Level up. Move higher in blogging circles to accelerate your success. Resist urges to shrink down from prospering opportunities to sprint back into your comfort zone of outright failure or muted blogging success. No one becomes free by sprinting away from freedom toward a fear-filled comfort zone. I could easily eat my dinner now and watch basketball for the rest of the evening to keep my blogging campaign exactly where it is, right now. However, my intuitive freedom nudged me to level up by writing and submitting this guest post. No one grows by ducking growth. Bloggers who grow level up across their blogging campaign to move higher in blogging circles, to be of greater service to fellow bloggers, and to walk the extra blogging mile so rarely traveled by most bloggers.
Step it up. Level up. Accelerate your blogging success as you free yourself one limiting belief at a time.
