5 OF THE BIGGEST SIGNS YOU MIGHT BE PLAYING YOUR BLOG NOT RUNNING IT
At the start of the year, I was absolutely BLASTING my blog work.
Recently though, I feel like I’ve experienced a little tough love - I’ve been playing my blog instead of running it.
So I thought about it a little more and and realised that actually, there are some pretty common signs that indicate that you’re just playing your blog.
It’s like hey - I’m just a blogger, doing whatever I want and I don’t really have a care in the world.
Sure, that sounds fun and fairly refreshing. But is it gratifying? Is it rewarding?
So let’s get into the why, with five signs you might be playing your blog.
#1 | YOU DON’T THINK IT’S POSSIBLE TO BE SUCCESSFUL
Truth alert - if you don’t *think* it’s possible for you to become a successful blogger, then you won’t behave like it’s possible either. Your actions will be messy because your belief is messy. Your decisions will be messy because your belief is messy.
Do you get where I’m going with this?
A sign you might be playing your blog is if you haven’t changed your mindset from a hobby into something more serious. And you can still be serious about a hobby.
When your mindset is focused on a hobby, you can’t see or measure yourself in terms of success. This is a huge part of blogging that you’re missing out on. Success can be motivating and seeing something grow even as a hobby can be motivating. Change your mindset and it will be truly enlightening.
#2 | YOU DON’T KNOW YOUR PURPOSE
Another sign you might be playing your blog is if you just create content about a random assortment of topics. You have no category clarity, or you’ve got so much going on that there is no clear vision as to what you actually do. No signature theme, style or topic. Nothing.
If you want to make a difference with your blog, you need a purpose. This doesn’t mean you can’t write about multiple topics. But it DOES mean (usually) that these topics will connect together more than say fashion trends, the latest car technology and a new favourite recipe would.
Define your categories and understand what you do. Crucial.
#3 | YOU’RE NOT CREATING ENOUGH CONTENT
Hear me out. I know a couple of weeks ago, I talked about why you should cut your blog post publishing schedule down. But there’s cutting it down to once a week and then there’s blogging every three months when you actually remember or feel like it.
It’s simple. Ain’t no blog being run on one piece of content every three months here. Ain’t no online presence being run by one Facebook post per week. You CANNOT sustain your blog if you don’t create enough content. That’s it. That’s when you’re being a player, not a manager.
#4 | YOU REFUSE TO INVEST IN YOUR BLOG AND YOURSELF
This is a super huge pitfall. Think back to when you were at school, college or university. You were forced (for your own good) to learn new things so your skills would grow and you’d become more valuable in the future.
It’s the same thing with blogging. You have to take initiative. You have to want to learn and grow. You are the most valuable asset in your blog. Don’t ignore that by thinking you can just pull things together at the last minute with all the freebies that are available everywhere. Remember - we all have access to those same freebies. If that was enough, well, we’d all be hitting the big time, wouldn’t we?
When you invest in training, tools or even a £5 Facebook advert for one month, you grow your business. I’ve done it and it’s worked. Be picky, oh BOY, be picky. But if you do this, you will grow your blog. No doubt whatsoever. It’s a necessity. Especially if you’ve got big dreams and goals for your blog and you want to take it full-time.
Outsourcing some of your tasks or paying for tools that can speed things up will give you something that a lot of bloggers crave: more time. Plus, if you invest in yourself and your blog, this establishes that you’re serious, which makes you even MORE worthy of investment. Good theory, right?
#5 | YOU DON’T MAKE IMPORTANT DECISIONS FOR YOUR BLOG
This means, you honour every email and every suggestion, no matter how crazy it might seem. You have a weak backbone. You never say no. You don’t take full responsibility for your blog. You shy into the background during a Twitter chat because you don’t know what to say. I could go on.
You need to have something about you if you want to make an impact with your blog. Sometimes, you’ve got to put yourself first and be kinder to your own needs than other people’s. It might seem silly - your readers are the most important people, right? Right. But if you keep pushing your needs to the side, you’re going to hit burnout faster than you know it. Plus, you’ll also end up resenting people if you end up making more decisions for them than you do to benefit you and your own blog.
So there you have it. I’ve never written a post with so much tough love in it before, but I felt like it needed to be addressed. And just remember - each one of these can be kicked to the curb and turned into a big positive!
Now it’s over to you - are you guilty of letting your feelings get in the way of your blog? Do you think you need to hear some tough love more often?