The motivation behind starting a blog can stem from various reasons: Creating a place to vent, starting a fun hobby, or attempting to grow a side business. Whatever the reason is for starting a blog in 2020, there are times where our minds start to doubt our abilities to become great bloggers. Our positive bright shinny new blogger attitudes can start to take a dip into doubts and negative thoughts that can hinder our path to success.
Of course this is normal as we go through challenges and lulls. Just remember that with every journey (including blogging), there will be setbacks and difficulties. These challenges never reflect on your worth as a person or blogger! These are just things we all have to go through, regardless of what stage we are on our blogs.
So as we go through the blogging journey together, here are some negative thoughts you might have while blogging, and how to combat them:
1. “Is my content/ writing even good enough??”
It can be easy to doubt your ability to create interesting content when you first start your blog. It’s difficult to gage the quality of your posts when there isn’t a large audience that can give you feedback.
After a couple posts, you may question whether people will find your content valuable. Maybe you’re questioning if your writing style is adequate, if you have the right images, or if the tips you’re giving actually help. Whatever your concerns are, every other blogger has probably thought the same thing.
The key to stop getting caught up in your head, is to put content out anyway! The only way you can start to tweak and improve your work, is if you have work to improve on in the first place. It’s difficult to grow and improve as a blogger if you’re afraid to post what you want to post. Everyone learns with experience.
Just keep creating, and stop debating.
2. “Everyone already has a ___________ themed blog, so my blog will never get popular!”
Blogging can seem intimidating because of how saturated the internet is with content. For example, if you type in the words “lifestyle blog” how many hits will you get on google? (Spoiler, it’s 1,790,000,000 results).
It seems like every living person has written out and posted something on social media, so how can we stand out? Is it even worth it to try and stand out?
The desire to stand out is not problematic. It’s natural. But trying to obtain the “I’m not like other blogs” attitude is not the right way to go about it. If every blogger focused on making their blogs “different”, rather than helpful, we’ll have a lot of artificial, random, and forced blog posts out there.
Rather than trying to stand out, craft your blog posts with your own personal voice. What matters is refining your blogging voice to attract the right audience that will continue to read your blog! Make sure you’re trying to serve the community you choose, rather than wanting an audience for the sake of popularity!
Focus on finding your own personal voice, rather than forcing ways to stand out.
3. “Okay so I wrote a couple blog posts…but now what do I write about?”
Awesome, so you chose your blog “niche” or topic, set up your entire blog site, you have the perfect theme, and all you have to do is write! And now you have writers block. Or maybe you’ve been writing so much the past couple days you’ve run dry. What do you even write about now?
When starting anything new, it’s the best time to explore different things. Maybe your blog was a fashion blog, but you feel like you’ve written every “What to wear to your next date” article you could. Why not branch out and try to write a relationship advice post that could be linked right after the date outfits article?
Or maybe you have a food blog but you’ve exhausted all your brain’s recipe resources, but you were really excited about the movie you watched last night. Write a review of the movie!
You’re a new blogger, you can go ahead and write different posts from different topics.
Explore different topics that you want to write about and just write about it. Don’t put unnecessary pressure on yourself to stick to your current chosen “niche”. You’ll see a pattern and see what posts you gravitate towards, and maybe find something you’re more interested in than what you started with.
Don’t keep yourself in a box, explore other topics when you’re unsure of what to write about!
4. “I don’t need the help of other bloggers I can set my blog up myself!!”
Everyone can use the internet, so obviously you can build a blog from scratch on your own! Right…? There is no doubt that everyone can figure it out themselves without any help from other bloggers, but why do that when there are bloggers who have great tips?
At first it may feel silly clicking on “5 steps to be a better blogger” posts all the time, but in the end there are some great information you can learn from so many successful bloggers! They’re at the top for a reason, and pushing your “I can figure it out own on my own thank you!” pride aside would be the best for your sanity, and your blog’s success.
Kick your pride to the curb, learn from others, and take in as many tips as you can from other bloggers!
5. “What Am I Thinking, I’ll Never Make it to Where I Want to Be”
We’ve all experienced it, the insane bout of inspiration and motivation…then the hard crash into pessimistic oblivion. Who are we kidding, we’ll never make a huge successful blog! My last post only got 3 views and I worked on it for 5 hours!
It’s easy to feel discouraged when you have a fantastic vision in mind and the results don’t match your expectations. But look at how far you’ve gotten. You turned your ideas into something tangible, you’re taking your first steps into what can be your own empire. Remember, everything takes time. Go back to a time where you were at square 1 and now you’re great at it. For example, even things as basic as handwriting. Do you remember your handwriting as a 1st grader vs. now? Great improvements. Learning a language. The first time hearing a language spoken probably felt like gibberish, but in a year or two you can distinguish specific words and sentences.
It’s the same thing with anything you start. It’s going to be hard. It’s going to be uncomfortable. But you need to take the first steps to get to the next level. And then the next, and then the next, up until you reach your first goal of where you want to be.
Everyone has to start somewhere, so look at your small wins rather than the distance to you final goal.
While the blogging journey may be harder than it seems, I hope that you find the courage and enthusiasm to keep going! Just as with anything in life, it’s important to give yourself credit for all of your small wins, and to make peace with self-doubt that may form along the way.
Here’s a good luck to your blog! I hope you become the most confident writer you strive to be!
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