How to Make a Comeback or Make Sure You Don’t Need To
Even though I have only been blogging for a few months I have already been in a couple of blogging slumps. Not the serious kind where you have to actually fight to get out, but still enough downtime for both me and my readers to realize that something was not as usual. Sometimes you are just too busy with life as such or you are too ill to think about blogging. Other times is it the comments or lack thereof that gets you down or you are obsessing with your stats and why they look like they do.
While health and everything else that is more important than blogging indeed should come first should it certainly be no excuse for not blogging as well. Turning yourself inward and obsessing with stats and comments and everything else you can obsess about when starting out (in my case my design and every little detail about it) is even worse as you then only obsess and aren’t spending your time on anything worthwhile. Even if that isn’t blogging. What the following articles will help you with is identifying possible pit falls and understanding how to avoid them or get out of them should you already have fallen into one.
Blog Growth Stalling: Some Reasons Why I Nearly Quit Blogging
“… I think any blogger would agree:it’s not exactly a cake walk to blog for the long term. I’ve been at this for under a year, and several times thought about throwing in the towel. While we all have different criteria for success, surely an inactive blog means the writer found something better to do.”
Challenges Every Blogger Must Overcome
“Every now and then I return to a blog that I haven’t visited in a while and find one of these statements, “I’m taking a break from blogging for a while. Stop back sometime soon.” Unless you’re a die-hard fan, I’m guessing that becomes the last time that you visit that blog.”
The Pressures of Blogging Consistently
“At some point, all bloggers feel the pressure of trying to blog consistently. No one ever said blogging was easy. Sometimes it can be a fun activity while other times it can feel like a daunting chore. A little bit of pressure is a good thing, because it can motivate you to write high quality articles on a regular basis. However, too much pressure can get in the way of one’s natural ability to post frequently.”
Need to Get Re-motivated?
“If you’re in a summer slump, and beaching it with your friends sounds better than being a big time business guru right now… read on… Check yourself on this checklist, and see what you can do to kick that energy up a few notches.”
Declaring War on Blogger Apathy
“I’ve continually pushed myself to find new and creative ways to beat down the blog killer of Apathy. I’ve seen other bloggers not been able to break through this and as a result their blogs today either don’t exist or have become something like the ghost towns of the Western Movie … So I’ve decided it’s time to declare war on Blog Apathy and want to share a number of the things that have helped me keep my motivation up in blogging.”
Sustainable Blogging: 12 Ways to Keep Your Posting Going Forever
“Many bloggers have lived through this scenario: they start off their blog with a flurry of posts, with a lot of enthusiasm. But once that enthusiasm dies down, posting slows to a trickle, with every real post matched by a promise, “Sorry I haven’t been posting regularly — I’ll be posting more from now on.” So the question every new blogger must ask himself is: how do you keep the fire burning? How do you ensure that your initial blogging enthusiasm lasts beyond the first few weeks?”
GTD for Bloggers: The Art of Stress-free Blogging
“The ever-popular productivity book Getting Things Done, by David Allen, caught on fire within the last few years through the power of blogs. And while many a blogger has fallen in love with GTD, and in fact many GTD blogs have been created, it’s time that a “GTD for Bloggers” was created.”
How To Make Sure Your Blog Stays Great
“Becoming a well known, high trafficked site is every Blogger’s site bringing upon link backs, ad revenue and immortality… against the Digg effect. But there will be a point where the beast that is your reader base will never be satisfied — always craving the next posting, and sooner or later you start to slag off… … Right down to Blog Purgatory. Your readers complain about the lack of content and miss the old you, the young hip you that clawed your way in the Blog-o-sphere. It’s a sad scenario isn’t it?”
Reignite Your Passion for Blogging
“Writing content and promoting your blog several times a week, every week can take its toll, especially when success takes time and patience to achieve. Many bloggers begin to lose interest. As their enthusiasm wanes, they may be stricken with the dreaded blogger’s block, allowing their post frequency to decline. Before you know it, the blog has died of disinterest and neglect. It’s a story told around the blogosphere time and again.”
Get Off Your Butt: 16 Ways to Get Motivated When You’re in a Slump
“Even the most motivated of us — you, me, Tony Robbins — can feel unmotivated at times. In fact, sometimes we get into such a slump that even thinking about making positive changes seems too difficult. But it’s not hopeless: with some small steps, baby ones in fact, you can get started down the road to positive change.”
6 Steps To Getting Back Into The Blog Saddle
“Every blogger is faced with situations that don’t allow them to publish as frequently as normal. Could be a slump. Maybe they’re too busy. Or… wait for it… they could be taking a vacation! When there’s some planned time away from the computer lots of bloggers will set the publish date on stories in advance, so the stories go live automatically - but that’s not always the case.”
Making a Comeback
“If you’ve ever fallen off track with your business goals or been forced into hiatus (for whatever reason), then you know it’s not always easy to just pick things back up again. When you leave the rat race, and the rest of the world keeps going – it IS easy to lose confidence in yourself. To watch everyone else make money and contacts while you deal with personal issues can be discouraging. But it can also be the fuel to your fire. Making a comeback is possible and worth while –people do it all the time. And your break can actually work to make you stronger if you let it.”
As mostly anything else deciding your blogging success does this boil down to what you do, why you do it and how you do it. When you are in a slump do you not do anything, but it can still be related to what you normally do. Perhaps you are doing the wrong things and that is getting you down? Why you do it is perhaps even more important as that is the real key to motivating yourself in my opinion. Whatever the purpose does it have to be clear to you just as it has to be achievable. Blogging to make a million dollars a year from now may seem more motivating than blogging to see your income increase every month, but it can also hold you back and even stop you dead in the track. Generally is blogging just to make money a poor idea so it may be a poor example as well, but you get the idea I am sure. How you do things should certainly be connected to why you do them. If you have great ideas, but execute them poorly or find yourself struggling with effectiveness and efficiency this may be where your problem lies. Reflecting about this trinity of blogging is always well advised. Particularly as they may evolve and change how you look at things and what motivates you in the process.
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Excellent collection of “blogging butt kickers”. So many bloggers don’t realize that slumps are natural. You plan for them, and work through them. Thanks for reminding us.