by Ryan Biddulph | Blogging |
This is a guest post by Ryan Biddulph. He shares smart blogging tips at Blogging From Paradise.
Watch.
Write.
I hate to sound simple. But being prolific is that simple.
Unfortunately, most bloggers confuse simple with easy. Bloggers believe watching and writing are easy. Anybody can watch, right? Anybody can write, correct? Why do few bloggers churn out content at a prolific clip, then?
Bloggers tend to do a poor job observing. Most human beings seemed tethered to the past or fixated on the future. No human being effectively observes people, places and things now if anchored to the past or ruminating about the future.
As for writing, I know of few bloggers who write 500-1000 words daily for practice. I advise every blogger to practice writing 500 or more words in a Word document daily to gain confidence in their writing skills. Writing 500 words in a Word document is simple. But writing 500 words in a Word document daily for years is uncomfortable.
I faced fears to write this blog post.
I already wrote and published 6 posts today between blog posts and guest posts. Ego told me I already did enough. Fear told me to get to bed in order to avoid feeling run down. I observed the fear. I felt the fear. I released the fear. I wrote this blog post.
Observe. Write.
Observe
Practice watching the world around you. I tune into reader problems. I also observe my life experiences for an endless flow of blog post ideas. But observing is not easy because the monkey mind jumps to and fro, like a tiny simian hopping around on tree branches. Consider meditating daily to quiet the mind. Quiet minds become completely aware of surroundings.
Stop right now. Take 5 deep breaths. Note every possible detail in your current surroundings. Let nothing go unnoticed. Pay particularly close attention to the thoughts and feelings flowing through your mind now. Following this simple practice for 5 minutes daily strengthens your powers of observation quickly.
Listen closely to your readers. Pore over their comments. Readers bring you an endless flow of blog post ideas if you pay attention to their thoughts, dreams, problems and hopes.
Write
Write diligently.
Practice writing daily in a Word document to gain clarity. Hone your writing voice through practice.
I have written enough to where I can write a 600 word post in 8-10 minutes if I genuinely want to. I do not write quickly as much as the words flow from my mind, to my fingers, to my laptop to the WordPress back office quite fast. I do not force myself to write quickly. But I practiced writing tens of millions of words since 2008. Doing so for 10,000 to 15,000 hours beefs up your skills in that discipline.
Observing people, places and circumstances to pluck blog post ideas out of thin air is not enough. Skilled, clear, confident writers convert airy ideas into tangible, helpful blog posts.
Never force yourself to write a blog post but publish content even if it feels uncomfortable to do so. Become prolific by edging outside of your content comfort zone.
I easily could have hit the sack a few moments ago. Writing this guest post for Cori and you rocking readers edged me out of my blogging comfort zone. Baby stepping out of comfort allows me to be more comfortable with making uncomfortable writing decisions in the future.
Summary
Being prolific is a simple but sometimes challenging process.
Become a skilled observer. Mine blog post ideas by watching.
Write diligently. Gain confidence and clarity in your writing voice.
Be a prolific blogger.
by Ryan Biddulph | Blogging |
This is a guest post by Ryan Biddulph. He shares smart blogging tips at Blogging From Paradise.
I commented on blogs a few moments ago.
But after 5 minutes I felt the urge to stop commenting.
I logged in to Cori’s blog and began writing this blog post.
I do comment genuinely on blogs for a short period of time daily. But I spend most time blogging and guest blogging because I am following my blogging path.
Sometimes I stray off of my blogging path. Blog commenting and social media chatting seemed to pull me away from my blogging purpose the past week or two. But I spotted my error to hop back onto my blogging path.
Becoming a successful blogger requires evolving.
Evolving demands you stay on your blogging path. But finding your path challenges you. Staying on blogging track feels uncomfortable. I felt comfortable genuinely commenting on blogs for hours each day over years. But I felt an urge to begin guest blogging and blogging more often because each offered me greater exposure and increased value for my readers.
I built strong bonds commenting genuinely on blogs but felt a strong inner pull to increase my exposure. Blog commenting felt comfortable to me. Guest posting required more effort, time, energy and commitment. I felt quite uncomfortable making the shift but had to do so in order to expand my success. More importantly, I began guest posting to help more bloggers.
Be prepared to walk a steadily changing blogging path over your online career.
New bloggers seem content with writing and publishing a 600-1000 word blog post weekly. Bloggers who commit fully to their craft over years observe their path change dramatically over the long haul. I slammed into writer’s block after 300 words when I began blogging in 2008. Now I can write 5-10 posts daily. My path in 2008 seemed to be writing and publishing a post weekly. But I gradually published one post daily as my path evolved. Years later I began guest posting. Podcasting entered the blogging fray for me a few years later.
My blog changed too. I trashed one blog in 2013. I trashed another blog in 2014. Blogging From Paradise was born in 2014. My blogging path changed once again because I chose a different blogging niche.
Following your blogging path tends to pull you away from other blogger’s paths.
I do not build an email list. Nor do I SEO-optimize blog posts. Goodness knows my blogging path feels drastically different from most pro bloggers. I write short, punchy, mindset themed blogging posts almost exclusively. No other established pro took this route. But I had to walk my unique blogging path to be the blogger I am today.
Walk your blogging path. Honor your intuition. Do not stray for too long; leaving your blogging path lumps you with the herd of blogging sheeple who experience mediocre or failing blogging careers. Follow your special blogging journey. Prepare yourself to feel uncomfortable at times. I still observe my ego doubting my blogging strategy sometimes, asking me if I could drive more traffic and profits with a big email list and Google traffic.
Nope!
MY blogging path does not include big lists, Google traffic or any of those strategies. Blogging and guest posting freely seems to be my blogging path for now.
But my blogging path is always subject to change, just like your blogging path.
Be open to fun, freeing blogging ideas invading your mind.
Be flexible.
Be open.
Walk your evolving blogging path.
Experience the greatest blogging success.
by Ryan Biddulph | Blogging |
This is a guest post by Ryan Biddulph. He shares smart blogging tips at Blogging From Paradise.
I spent 30 seconds pondering the title for this guest post.
Discomfort arose in my being. I observed:
- frustration
- agitation
- an urge to not write the guest post
surface in my mind. I felt the feelings. I released the feelings. I wrote the guest post.
Logically, this process sounds clean, neat and orderly. Emotionally, the process felt unpleasant because I do not enjoy feeling frustrated, agitated or like a quitter. Do you enjoy feeling these emotions? I did not think so 🙂
But I felt the feelings, hugged the emotions and released the energies. The idea for sitting with blogging discomfort entered my mind. I took it from there.
How often do you sit with blogging discomfort?
Or do you avoid uncomfortable emotions concerning your blogging campaign? Blog traffic sits outside of your comfort zone. Blogging profits sit outside of your comfort zone. Blogging business sits outside of your comfort zone. Freedom sits outside of your comfort zone.
The only way to edge outside of your blogging comfort zone is to ease into blogging discomfort. No human being enjoys feeling uncomfortable emotions. No person savors feeling fear. But the price of avoiding discomfort is steep; blogging struggles, failure and eventual quitting greets bloggers firmly ensconced inside of their comfort zones.
All blogging struggles originate inside of your comfort zone.
Imagine if you fear guest posting. Perhaps you fear pro bloggers rejecting your guest post pitches. Rather than wade into fear you avoid guest posting. Traffic and profit struggles plague your blogging campaign because you avoid facing, feeling and releasing the fear of guest posting. Avoiding discomfort guarantees your failure. Does that sound like a wise trade off?
Edge into the fear of guest posting.
Embrace the illusion of rejection. I appeared to be rejected a few times early during my guest posting career. But feeling these uncomfortable emotions removed the illusion. I observed the truth: bloggers may prefer writing styles different than your writing style. I only made this realization because I faced, felt and released the fear of rejection. Losing the fear of rejection reveals how human beings harbor personal preferences completely independent of you, your skills and your abilities as a blogger.
Edge into blogging discomfort.
Never cower to writer’s block. Stick around. Savor the frustration. Feel the anger. Hug the agitation. Allow these energies to exit your being. Clear fear. See clearly. Access unlimited blog post ideas by feeling uncomfortable emotions suggesting one can actually suffer from writer’s block.
Consider engaging in practices like meditating and doing yoga. Edge outside of your comfort zone. Habitually nudge into discomfort offline to develop the habit online.
Surround yourself with bloggers who value freedom over ducking fear. Follow their lead. Learn from their example. Blogging success flows to you well outside of your comfort zone. Sit with uncomfortable feelings. Watch how your mind and its illusory fears attempt to derail your blogging campaign. Lose bloggers surrounding you who make excuses, who complain and who never seem to edge forward into increased success.
Get comfortable with being highly uncomfortable.
Edging into discomfort seems to be a skill one develops after suffering through enough miserable conditions. I became familiar with being uncomfortable after experiencing a host of genuinely difficult life experiences over 10 years of my life. Either my life would become worse or I would free myself from these nightmares based on my willingness to make uncomfortable, freeing decisions. I chose to be free. I never looked back.
Hug discomfort.
Choose freedom.
Accelerate your blogging success.
by Ryan Biddulph | Blogging |
This is a guest post by Ryan Biddulph. He shares smart blogging tips at Blogging From Paradise.
Social media has brainwashed human beings easily manipulated by their own fears.
People who fear not being enough crave illusory attention in the form of lofty vanity metrics.
But the illusion of vanity metrics forms a stark contrast to the reality of human beings who love you, admire what you do and follow you diligently.
Most people cannot see the difference between having fake followers and loyal humans who love you and love your work.
Most bloggers see blogging in a similar light.
Bloggers cannot understand the difference between fake followers and loyal readers.
Fake followers appear to follow your blog.
But fake followers literally add fake, vanity metrics to your blogging campaign. Vanity metrics are useless. Many new bloggers boast of gaining 1000 blog followers. But 1000 blog followers is simply a number attached to a vanity metric. New bloggers feel frustrated when their 1000 blog followers do not hire them, buy their stuff or spread their word by promoting the blogger followed. Unfortunately, the vanity metric of 1000 blog followers does not equate to having 1000 loyal readers.
Loyal readers:
- read most if not all of your blog posts
- promote your blog posts persistently
- tend to hire you
- tend to buy your stuff
Loyal readers endorse you, grow your business through word of mouth marketing and allow you to go pro. Loyal readers take a genuine interest in you and your blog. Caring, loyal readers make blogging fun because chatting with people who love what you do feels like a blogging party.
Fake blogging followers click a button but do not read your posts regularly.
Fake blogging followers may sign up for your list but rarely if ever open your emails and click through to your blog posts. Do you want to weed out fake blogging followers to connect solely with loyal readers? Email only active subscribers. Any subscriber who does not routinely open your emails is a fake follower padding vanity metrics. Perhaps you accumulated a high number of email subscribers, but just because someone subscribed to your blog via email does not mean:
- the individual opens your emails
- the individual clicks on links in your email to visit your blog
- the individual reads your blog posts
- the individual shares your blog posts on social media
- the individual buys your courses and eBooks
- the individual hires you
Loyal readers read your blog, hire you and buy your stuff more often than not.
Give virtually all of your attention and energy to loyal readers.
Chat with loyal readers on social media. Engage loyal readers through blog comments. Email loyal readers to ask how they are doing. Bonding with loyal readers brings more loyal readers to your blog because where your attention and energy goes, grows. Loyal readers promote your blog and business to their like-minded buddies. Their like-minded buddies follow your blog, hire you and buy your stuff.
Let go vanity metrics because anything that pleases ego and makes you appear to be trustworthy is meaningless, worthless and held in esteem only by superficial, vacant people easily impressed by illusions. Let go fake followers. Release your obsession with numbers. Give your attention and energy to genuine human beings who love you and love your blog.
People who diligently follow your blog form a rock solid foundation for your blogging campaign. Listen to their needs. Tune into their problems. Pay close attention to their dreams. Blogging gets easier when you realize going pro depends on building intimately personal bonds with loyal readers, 1 to 1. Long term success flows to bloggers who make their loyal readers feel special, loved and cared for.
by Ryan Biddulph | Blogging |
This is a guest post by Ryan Biddulph. He shares smart blogging tips at Blogging From Paradise.
Deep. paralyzing self-doubt cripples almost all newbie bloggers from time to time.
Left unchecked, self-doubt destroys your blogging campaign. Why blog if no one will read your blog anyway? Why would anyone read your blog? Why would anyone eventually hire you or buy your stuff when you monetize your blog? Each thought-feeling races through the mind of every new blogger a few times. If you do not face, feel and release self-doubt you will fail because blogging from a doubting energy guarantees self-sabotaging ways.
For example, if you fear no one will read your blog because you are a newbie you tend not to write and publish posts persistently. Other self-sabotaging ways involve playing small, not networking, resisting monetizing your blog and surrounding yourself only with fellow new, struggling bloggers who offer failing advice.
One way exists to overcome newbie blogging self-doubt; wade into the energies and walk through the energies by feeling self-doubt.
No elegant, seamless way exists to overcome self-doubt suffered by newbies. Meditating helps to expand your awareness to observe your deep doubts but sitting to watch your thoughts and feelings does not overcome self-doubt for you. You need to face fears, feel fears and release fears to conquer self-doubts. Few human beings enjoy feeling tender, vulnerable and open but conquering lack of belief in self involves hugging these bad-feeling energies to leave doubts in the rear-view window.
Face self-doubt.
Stare the energy in the eyes. Feel self-doubt. Sit with the discomfort of questioning yourself, invalidating your blog and devaluing your blogging abilities. Every new blogger doubts themselves but few wade into the highly uncomfortable emotions of feeling like a:
New bloggers usually see themselves as unqualified, unprepared frauds on some level because you have no experience and skills to call upon to build your credibility. Every beginner blogger has a similar experience because all new bloggers lack skills, experience and exposure enough to gain reader trust. Write and publish your first 5 blog posts even if you fear nobody will read the posts.
What happens if nobody readers your first 5 blog posts? What happens if your deepest fears come true to fully confirm your doubts? Nothing! Join the club.
Nobody read my blog for a long time. I tortured myself with deep doubts concerning myself and my blogging abilities. I persistently blogged through my self-doubts. I felt these terrible-feeling emotions. Eventually, after feeling my self-doubts persistently enough I cleared many doubts and replaced the energies with clarity and belief in myself. I continued blogging. Great blogging success followed.
Nudging into doubt allows you to face, feel and release doubt. Increased confidence and clarity expand in your being. Clearer, more confident bloggers create and connect through thick and thin.
Be comfortable with being uncomfortable as a new blogger.
I sometimes cringe at my first few blog posts because my high level of self-doubt reflected through my work. I lacked writing confidence and clarity during my newbie blogging days because *all* newbie bloggers lack confidence and clarity. Who lacking skills, exposure and credibility feels clear and confident? Bloggers develop clarity and confidence by increasing your skills, exposure and credibility through persistent creating and connecting.
Never overwhelm yourself with self-doubt until you retreat into a cyber cave. Feel the fear of not being good enough. Hug the fear of not being skilled enough. Embrace the routine self-questioning habit pattern each time you write and publish a blog post as a new blogger.
Get used to doubting yourself as a newbie blogger but don’t trust your doubts. Feel fears fueling self-doubts, keep creating and connecting and position yourself to succeed online by wading through uncomfortable but freeing emotions.
by Ryan Biddulph | Blogging |
This is a guest post by Ryan Biddulph. He shares smart blogging tips at Blogging From Paradise.
Blogging is a skill.
Skills require 1000s of practice hours to master any skill.
Becoming a professional blogger requires thousands of:
- learning
- studying
- practicing
hours in order to become skilled enough to be a pro blogger. Becoming a pro blogger demands you blog for 1000s of hours spanning years, well before you earn a professional blogger income. Most bloggers struggle, fail and quit when times get tough versus seeing the journey through. How can you develop any skill if you quit before you put in real time?
Imagine that you want to become a doctor. After spending 6 months in college – studying biology – you become frustrated at not earning one cent of income as a doctor. Does this sound insane? You bet it does. No college student with 6 months of experience as a bio major has enough skills to become a doctor running a thriving practice. Expect to give 10 to 15 years of your life to become a highly prospering doctor with no debts to pay off because being that skilled requires ample practice.
But aspiring bloggers exhibit a similar level of delusion after being upset about not making a dime as newbies. Why would someone hire you to coach them if you have only 3 months of blogging skills under your belt? You can only give what you have. Bloggers have nowhere near the skill set to develop as doctors do, yet we need to spend 1000s upon 1000s of hours writing, creating, connecting and monetizing our way to professional blogging careers. Shortcuts do not exist.
Amateur bloggers often look for blogging shortcuts.
Aspiring pros sometimes foolishly believe one can take shortcuts to a pro career but no one can skip skills development. Even if you had a time machine you cannot fast forward to succeed because you would miss the 1000s of work hours required to become highly skilled, clear and confident. No one skips skills development and goes pro because the skills make you a professional blogger. Sans skills, you do not go pro.
Blogging is a serious skill because one needs to develop various skill sets in order to become a professional. Become a skilled writer to gain credibility. Learn how to network with influential bloggers to move higher in blogging circles. Monetizing is yet another skill to learn, practice and master in order to increase your blogging income effectively. No one learns and masters these skills overnight because each requires 1000s of study and practice hours in order to become highly proficient in each area.
Do you understand why few bloggers seem to go pro?
Most think being a pro blogger is:
- sitting down to your laptop
- writing whatever comes to mind
- hitting the publish button
- plastering a few ads along your sidebar
- counting sweet pro blogger money
In reality, being a pro blogger involves:
- careful study of how to become a pro blogger by investing money in courses and eBooks from pros, consuming resources voraciously and putting their knowledge into action
- listening to reader needs
- solving their problems with your content
- networking by promoting fellow bloggers in your niche
- monetizing your blog through resonant channels
- spending 5000 to 7000 plus hours doing these things through thick, thin, fun, fears and everything in between
Being free is worth it. Circling the globe as a pro or simply blogging in your hometown as a professional is a fun, freeing, fulfilling way to live but getting in your skill work challenges you mightily at times. No one tastes the blogging sweet unless you down the less palatable blogging sour at times.
Blogging is a skill with many moving parts.
Remember this as you dive headfirst into your blogging campaign going forward.
