This is a guest post by Ryan Biddulph. He shares smart blogging tips at Blogging From Paradise.
Blogging failure indicates a lack of commitment to the blogging process.
Failing bloggers usually harbor deluded expectations.
Do you want to become wildly successful after 6 months of blogging? Save the rarest of cases, no one achieves staggering blogging success in a 6 month time frame. Observe professionals in various niches. Professional athletes, famous singers and captains of industry require years or even decades to hone their skills to master levels.
Thank goodness, becoming a professional blogger does not require decades of blogging effort. But going pro demands you blog for 1000’s of hours spanning years to lay the foundation for a prospering blogging career.
Think about after you go pro.
Does your workload vanish into the ethers? Of course not; pro bloggers sometimes work as much as during their amateur blogging days. I routinely blog for 6-8 hours daily. I have not missed a blogging work day for the past 5 years. Top pros taught me becoming a thriving pro required a full commitment to the blogging process of:
- creating
- connecting
- monetizing
for a sustained period of time.
I observed professional bloggers who attracted immense blogging success after generously, patiently and persistently creating and connecting for 10 years. Toss in monetizing for the professional blogger triple play. Contrast these seasoned pros who keep at it for 10 years with frustrated, impatient amateurs who give up on blogging after 6 months or 1 year.
Why do you expect to go pro after 1 year if seasoned pros spend 10 years to become niche leaders? Most pros blog as amateurs for at least 3-4 years before becoming professionals. No blogger has access to short cuts, hacks or other lies presented by less than honest, unscrupulous, manipulative bloggers intending to use your greed and desperation against you.
Being fully committed to blogging means doing simple things frequently for a long time. Picture the blogger writing and publishing simple posts solving reader problems, connecting with bloggers and readers, and monetizing their blogs generously over a decade long time frame. Few bloggers commit fully to blogging for 10 years because most bloggers refuse to commit to blogging for 10 months.
How can you go pro if you try to skip the years of blogging:
- practice
- skills
- experience
you need to gain to become a professional blogger?
Cori invited me to guest post on her rocking blog because I committed completely to blogging for years. I wrote daily for a long time. I gained confidence and clarity in my writing voice. I also networked genuinely for years. Creating and connecting through my commitment to blogging developed my skills, exposure and credibility to the point where a respected blogger like Cori invited me to guest post on her blog. I offered to write a guest post for my blogging buddies. She graciously accepted my offer.
The process appeared to consume only a few minutes of my time between my offer and Cori’s acceptance but in truth, I spent 10,000 to 15,000 hours blogging up until the point I made the offer Cori accepted. Does that sound like a hack to you? Did it sound like I took a short cut to reach this point?
I have observed top professional bloggers explain how they would have blogged for free for their 15 year careers due to their love of blogging. You better love blogging this much if you ever dream of committing to this gig for 5, 10, 15 years or longer.
Be all in.
Blog mainly for the fun of blogging.
Being fully committed to blogging allows blogging to fully commit to you.
