Have you ever thought about starting a blog?

I toyed with the idea once or twice myself before I finally did. As much as I love to write, I hate blogs.  Everything about them.  My thoughts are, who has time to read blogs? …much less keep up with writing one?  AmIRight?

Plus, there are just so many out there already!  As of 2013, there were 152 million blogs on the internet. [1]  As of 2:46pm on Feb 17^th, 2017 there had already been 2.9 million blog posts posted THAT DAY alone.[2]

I figured if I did ever start one, I would make it about two months and never remember to post again.  Fizzle out. Like so many other bloggers do. In fact, research shows the average blog is dead after a mere 100 days.

So I never started one. Until I did.  Sunday was the two year anniversary of my first blog post.

So, why did I start one?

Because in one conversation with my mentor, she told me if I ever wanted to get a book contract with a publisher, I needed this thing called a platform, and blogging was generally a good way to start building one of those.

So, Feb 19^th, 2015, I opened a WordPress account and copy/pasted something I’d already written as a facebook post as my first blog entry.  (I know, I totally cheated.)

But since that first post, I’ve learned a few things.  Here’s what I want you to know, that I wish I had known then:

1. Know that blogging is not for the faint of heart. But it’s worth it.

Baring your soul for the whole world to see is not easy – even for us extroverts.

There’s a Special Thanks page in the back of my book and my editor’s name is first on the list.  This is part of what I wrote to her: Turning over a first book (or maybe any book? I don’t know yet) for editing is kind of like tearing open your soul and inviting someone to walk inside.  It’s exposing the most intimate parts of your inner self and trusting that person not to return pieces of you shattered and bloody.

It’s the same with blogging.

There are some posts I write that are so vulnerable I want to throw up after I hit the “publish” button.  I don’t know if my words and my heart will be received appropriately.  What if the message I was trying to convey is misinterpreted?  Or what if I just sound stupid, or whiny, or self-centered, or entitled….

I vividly remember feeling this way about a post I wrote regarding race relations during some of the tense riots that happened over the last few years.  (You can read that post here: www.RachelDawnWrites.com/blog/Color-blinded)

I have been super fortunate to this point that I haven’t gotten any extremely negative, critical or harsh comments about anything I’ve written.  But I know as my platform grows, it’s inevitable.

I heard a speaker at a writing conference say, “When you’re marketing anything in life – whether it’s chicken sandwiches or books – there is a 1% jerk factor in the world.  One percent of people who are just negative and critical for the sake of being negative and critical.  It doesn’t have anything to do with you.  You could offer the best thing in the world, that 99 other people love, but this 1 person will find something wrong with it and a reason to complain.”  Expect it, Accept it, Move on. It’s not you, it’s them.

Your message will resonate with some people and not with others, and that’s ok.  You can get really derailed really fast if you try pleasing everyone with every post.  That’s just not reality.

Pick you niche, hone your voice, find your audience, and write meaningful stuff for them.  Period.

Any self-doubt, second-guessing, fear, uncertainty or criticism is totally worth it when someone responds to something you’ve written with, “me too”, “that’s exactly how I feel”, “I thought I was alone”.

2. Know that it sucks. No one will read it (at first). You will want to quit.

I understand that’s 3 things in one bullet point, but they are all the same.

Recently a photographer friend of mine posted: “Being a [creative] entrepreneur is just waves of ‘I just want to quit’, ‘this is crap’, ‘I’m deleting social media’, and occasionally, ‘Man, I was really made to do this.’”

When you spend hours working on one post, upload it, and keep refreshing your wordpress stats every 15 mins only to see that only 6 people look at it and no one comments….. you kiiiind of feel like throwing in the towel.

What’s the point of writing, of investing your time and emotional/mental energy, if no one even cares?

I don’t have an answer to this one.  Because I found myself asking this very same question this week.  After two years of blogging I have 33 “subscribers” to my blog.  Even some of my most loyal readers, who tell me they love every post I write, aren’t subscribed and they don’t regularly share my posts with their networks.  So I get it, it’s really discouraging.

But I’m learning there are ways you can hone your voice and your craft to increase those numbers, to increase your effectiveness.

I came across some incredible free training just this week that’s helping me with streamlining my posts to get more traction and shares.  Ruth Surkamp founder of Elite Blogging Academy, author of “How to Blog for Profit: Without Selling Your Soul”, is offering this free series online right now. Check it out: https://ruthsoukup.leadpages.co/blogging-made-simple-2017-video-1/?inf_contact_key=bd1f84da626e39d8eb703404e962fc6161c1d1a4683a3ab7fb02ce596d2ae12f

I got tons of practical, immediately applicable tips from the very first video.  I completely restructured this post I had already started after watching it and learning what I did.  Thank you for that Ruth!

3. Know WHY you are blogging.

The quickest way to get frustrated and stop blogging is if you start a blog before you know why you are starting a blog.  There are definitely tips and tricks and skills you can learn to blog more effectively, depending on what your goals are.  But if you don’t know what your goals are….. you can’t hit them.

Ask yourself, why are you blogging?  Is it just for fun?  Are you just blogging for yourself, a literal personal web-log or diary?  Are you blogging to tell stories to your close family and friends?  Are you trying to use blogging as a source of income?  Are you trying to expand your network/platform/reach/tribe/influence – whatever you want to call it – to get your voice and your message out there?  Are you trying to make an impact?  Change people’s lives?  Raise awareness?  Be an expert?  Start a movement?

Even if it’s just to make people laugh or to feel inspired, you need to ask yourself:  What is your purpose in blogging?

I came face to face with this question shortly after I launched my blog and my online platform, when Facebook asked me “What business am I in?”  I stared at the blank box with the blinking cursor in it for a solid half hour while I asked myself, why am I doing this anyway?  I came up with a pretty solid answer I shared in this post here: www.RachelDawnWrites.com/blog/what-business-am-i-in.

What it boiled down to in 160 characters or less was:

“I am in the business of restoring hope, igniting dreams, inspiring change, and leading people toward freedom.”

And out of that whole exercise came my business tagline, “Restoring Hope, Igniting Dreams”.

That’s why I blog.  That’s why I study how and work to increase my platform.  Because the more people my blogs can reach, the more people’s lives I can impact and influence for the better.  Which is literally the reason I was created in the first place.

Blogging helps me move in the direction of my purpose.  That’s a good investment of time and energy.

You need to ask yourself if it is for you.

4. Know You Have Something Worth Saying.

Who was I to start a blog?  What did I have to say that people would be interested in and that hadn’t already been said a thousand times.  Who would want to read it?  How would I stand out from all the others?  Those were some of the questions I wrestled with that February two years ago.

Reading all the overwhelming stats about how saturated the world of blogging is and thinking about all the work, potential roadblocks, discouragements and frustrations could easily make you throw up your hands and decide blogging isn’t worth it at all.

Or maybe you’re stuck in that place I was asking, “Who am I to do this?”

This week I taught the high school service at my church.  We are in the midst of an all-church journey on identity, wherein we are identifying the lies and labels in our lives – who we think we are or who the world says we are – and replacing those with the Truth of who God says we are.

Part of the lesson this week was the story of Moses and his own identity crisis.  Born a Hebrew slave, raised an Egyptian Prince, on the run after committing murder, Moses found himself pondering life as a sheepherder in the country.  When seemingly out of nowhere, God called him to be the hero of the story; to lead the people of Isreal out of slavery in Egypt.  His response to God was similar to mine when God told me to write a book (and subsequently start a blog), “Who am I, Lord?  Who am I to be the hero or lead a people?”

God’s response was simple: It doesn’t matter who you are, Moses, what matters is Who is with you and Who is sending you.  He told Moses to go into Egypt and tell people “I Am” (Yahweh) has sent me.  That’s all the credibility and power Moses needed.

You were created for a purpose. Just like I was. Just like Moses was. Uniquely. There are seeds planted inside of you, talents and abilities, to help you succeed in that purpose.  Writing – sharing your thoughts through written words – may very well be a part of that.

Lysa Terkeurst says this in her book “Uninvited”: “Remember that there is an abundant need in this word for your contributions….. your thoughts and words and artistic expressions…. Your exact brand of beautiful.”

Other people might have similar things to say, but there is only one you.  You are the only person with your story, your experiences, your worldview, your voice.

Don’t let your doubts, fears, or insecurities stop you from doing what you were created to do.

What if, instead of agreeing to the mission, Moses had told God, “There are so many other Hebrew men more qualified for this than me, I’m out.”

Would the Isrealites still be in slavery today?  Would thousands of lives be entirely different?  Maybe.  Likely not.  Likely, God still would have accomplished His mission, but He would have used someone else to get it done.  He could have found someone else to stand up to Pharoah and say, “Let my people go.” But the one life that certainly would have been different would have been Moses’.  He would have lived out his days as a sheepherder, which was not what he was created to do.

If you decide not to let those words that are burning inside you get out, could God still get that message out through someone else?  Of course.  But then you won’t be living out what you were created to do either.  And what kind of living is that?

So, blogging might be hard and it might suck and maybe you’ll never have more than 30 readers, and most of the time you’ll feel like giving up, but if it’s part of what you were created to do, you must.

And when you feel like quitting, just remember why you are doing it, Who sent you, and that you have something worth saying.

[1] http://www.patrickkphillips.com/blogging/research-the-average-blog-lifespan-isnt-very-long/

[2] www.Worldometers.info/blogs