This is a guest post by Ryan Biddulph. He shares smart blogging tips at Blogging From Paradise.
One of the toughest lessons to learn in blogging is that you need to BE a successful blogger before becoming a successful blogger.
Thinking, feeling and acting like a pro before going pro feels like an uncomfortable quantum leap for most bloggers. How can you feel like a pro and blog with posture if you see virtually no positive returns for your hard blogging work?
Work comes before getting rewards. Most of you know this basic blogging truth. But dealing with emotional turmoil during the work process feels overwhelming sometimes. How does it feel to work gratis for 5 months to see zero profits?
Sometimes you feel OK working for free. Part of the game. Other times, you feel frustrated working for free because people feel accustomed to getting paychecks for work completed. We tend to be employees during some stage of life.
Goodness knows I was in that blogging boat for a bit. I felt OK working for free sometimes. But I felt frustrated to work for free, most of the time. I thought like an employee; work to get paid. Blogging is a different game, though. Work to gain skills, exposure and credibility. Pay days arrive down the road.
Blogging is being a successful blogger and doing as success does before seeing tangible, real world success. Bloggers work like millionaires before making millions. Bloggers work like millionaires while earning 0 bucks or 100 bucks or maybe 10,000 bucks.
Put in work. Be patient. Be persistent.
All this pro blogger BEING leads to you SEEING pro blogging results down the road. How far down the road? Who knows? Not decades. But suffice to say, months to years pass because going pro requires thousands of blogging hours before your skills, exposure and credibility increase to professional levels.
I developed the skill of seeing a few trees growing into a forest, blogging-wise. I counted seemingly small wins to feel good about being the pro before becoming the pro. Feeling good about every visitor and penny in blogging profits influenced me to feel successful. Feeling successful goaded me to keep doing as pro bloggers do: create, connect and self-promote my multiple streams of income.
Sure I ran into blogging bumps in the road masquerading as my fears but I faced, felt and released these energies to continue being a professional blogger before going pro.
Do you BE a pro blogger daily?
If you see success you BEed a pro for many thousands of hours. Being a pro means generously creating, connecting, opening multiple income streams and trusting in self and process. Imagine having immense posture. See yourself succeeding well before physical, actual, tangible success finds you. Cultivate a knowing that success is yours.
Patiently keep being a pro well before you go pro. No one goes pro and sees pro dough until you work like a pro for a sustained period of time. Being precedes seeing. No way you see pro blogging success in traffic and money terms until you be the pro for years.
Imagine you intend to maximize your blogging profits.
Being preceding seeing means you BE the pro generously and genuinely for a time before seeing the profits boost. Nothing happens overnight. Expect a hefty lag to exist because lags bridge being and seeing. Lags give clarity to the process. Lags weed out lazy bloggers. Lags allow blogging cream to rise to the top. Lags cull deluded bloggers who try to get rich quick or seek overnight success.
No such fallacies exist. You BE as successful bloggers BE, generously creating and connecting, then, over time, you SEE more traffic, profits and business from your blogging efforts. The process is logically simple to follow but emotionally uncomfortable to follow sometimes because facing fear is never comfortable, pleasant or seamless. No one enjoys feeling fear. But….welcome to going pro.
Keep being and you will eventually keep seeing. Be the pro and pro blogging results find you after working diligently and persistently. Nobody takes free rides. We all put in work to blog successfully. No shortcuts exist. Never let bloggers fool you. Hacks do not exist. Good old fashioned hard work exists. That’s just the way that it is.
This is a guest post by Ryan Biddulph. He shares smart blogging tips at Blogging From Paradise.
I want to help you learn a lesson I had to learn, to succeed.
No one can outrun their self image. I care not if you work 15 hours daily. It matters not if you generously serve people. I do not even care if you trust in the process. If you see yourself as a certain person, you will be that certain person, until you change your self image.
Why? Where your attention and energy goes, grows.
Give your energy to being a broke, struggling loser and it shall be so. Give your energy to being an abundant, victorious winner and it shall be so. Life follows your self image. You choose how to see yourself and more key, how to feel.
My Deal
10 years ago, I feared life. I was a scared security guard living mainly to get a paycheck. After being fired from my job I decided I would never work for anybody again because I became sick and tired of working 60 hour weeks and 18 hour shifts at times. I hated being bound. I hated NOT being free.
Through the power of a firm, definite decision, I slowly but surely saw myself as a blogger the day I bought my domain and hosting. Hell yeah I made scary, highly uncomfortable decisions. I wished to quit on Day 1 of my blogging career; I panicked and wanted out.
My wife eased me off of the ledge. 10 years later, here we are. But i needed to see myself as a blogger to think, feel and act like a blogger. Thinking, feeling and acting like a blogger helped lay the foundation for sweet blogging results, down the road, at least.
I gradually felt like a blogger so I did as a blogger does. Imagine if I felt like a security guard? No matter how hard and long I worked at blogging, I would fail forever because I would eventually self-sabotage or flat out struggle mightily because a security guard succeeds as a security guard, not as a blogger. Why? Where your attention and energy goes, grows.
One common self image mistake often spotted involves full time employees who see themselves as full time employees terrified to invest time, energy and money in a part time blogger career.
This crowd thinks, feels and acts like full time employees, so the full time employee reality continues to be their life until they think, feel and act like a blogger. Nobody outruns their self image because how you see yourself dictates how others treat you and how you live your life.
Change the Self Image
Spend time in quiet. Play with an image of your dream life in mind. Relax. Allow a calm, peaceful, empowered image of self come to mind. How does it feel? Remember that feeling. Carry that feeling with you. Listen to silent instructions.
Only you can build your self image because it is a “self” image, or, how you choose to see yourself. If you struggle with blogging or writing or any aspect of your online business, change your self image from struggling to successful. See yourself as a current day, successful blogger in mind, versus seeing yourself in your prior profession.
I never could have retired to a life of island hopping if I saw myself as a struggling, fired security guard. I never could outwork or outrun that self image. Changing the image to being a pro blogger quickly influenced me to think, feel and act like a pro blogger, well before I became a pro blogger.
This is a guest post by Ryan Biddulph. He shares smart blogging tips at Blogging From Paradise.
Help people for free
Be generous.
This is the most simple way to grow a slow blogging business.
Bloggers often say business is slow and then….sit there. This always seemed strange to me. Blogging business is slow because you are stingy. Blogging business grows if you are generous. Helping people for free increases both your skills and exposure. Skilled bloggers with massive exposure make coin.
Why Being Generous Grows Business
OK; let’s dissect my day today.
I woke up, meditated, grabbed a coffee and water and published a post on my blog. Generosity. I helped people for free. Zero expectations. I trust in the process.
I emailed my list, shared on social media and my exposure increased that much more. Within 10 minutes I nabbed 29 email opens. I have not actively built my list in years. Nor do I have a big list. But being generous aligns you with success, plain and simple.
After publishing my blog post I wrote and published a guest post on Blogging Tips Dot Com. Guess what? I increased my exposure and skills by publishing the guest post freely and generously. Zero expectations. I have fun helping people. I trust in the process.
People will buy my eBooks and/or course by finding me through the blog post and guest post. I have been generous for years, helping people for free through guest posting, publishing posts on my blog and by promoting other bloggers and commenting genuinely on blogs,
I appear to be everywhere. Appearing to be everywhere grows your blogging business because people see you all over, trust you, buy your stuff and hire you.
Plant Seeds for a Blogging Forest
Imagine planting seeds to grow a blogging forest. If you plant 5 seeds you get 5 trees. If you plant 40,000 seeds you get 40,000 trees. You get the picture.
Of course, trees take time to grow. But instead of planting 1 seed, waiting around for it to grow, you plant another, and another, until you have planted 100 seeds. Phew! That is enough for today. Tomorrow you plant 50 seeds. Plant 200 seeds the following day and you have the beginnings of a forest. We’re talking 250 seeds planted for trees.
Eventually, if you water the seeds and ensure each seed gets ample sun based on your planting location, slowly and steadily, each seed will grow into huge, impressive, green, lush trees, forming an impenetrable forest.
Being generous blogging-wise is like planting content seeds for a content forest that readers see far and wide. Write and publish one guest post today. Write and publish one post for your blog. 2 content seeds planted today. Good. Both will grow into something impressive – over time – but you do not become successful by planting 2 content seeds. Nope. Generously planting forests helps you be everywhere, growing your business quickly.
Being generous blogging-wise is like planting content seeds for a content forest that readers see far and wide.
Plant 5 content seeds today. Publish a podcast. Broadcast live on Facebook. Today, the video content seed gets 55 views. Tomorrow, you notice 59 views. 365 days down the road, the video content seed gets 434 views. Talk about a seriously big content tree. But now imagine all the content seeds you placed over the past 3 months, every single day. Envision 300 pieces of content – 3 pieces/seeds you plant daily – individually nabbing 1, 5 or 100 views daily.
Do you see what I am talking about?
Thousands and thousands of views mean a huge army of interested folks viewing your blog, your eBooks, your courses, your services, and your advertising opportunities. People will begin buying and hiring. Your blogging business grows.
